William Sommer

William Sommer was born in Detroit, Michigan and in his youth apprenticed for several years under a lithographer. He studied art briefly in Germany, afterwards working as a lithographer in New York. He moved to Cleveland and was awarded a contract with Otis Lithography Co. Sommer became intrigued with fine art and painting after he met sculptor and painter William Zorach. Sommer co-founded the Kokoon Arts Club in 1911, a group of commercial artists wanting to promote modern art in Cleveland. Zorach had been in Paris and after returning, showed Sommer the fundamentals of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Sommer adapted these styles from 1910-1914, his canvases covered similarly in vivid colors and dynamic brushwork.

 In 1914, Sommer converted an abandoned school house in Brandywine to a studio, in which he produced energetic watercolors, radiating the influence of Matisse.  Throughout the mid 1920s, he began to use oil paint and his work turned more expressive and geometric, focusing on subjects such as children, landscapes of the Midwest, livestock, and still lifes. Later on, watercolor became his primary medium and he applied aesthetic principles of European modernism to his subject matter. Charles Burchfield studied under Sommer and was one of his most successful students. Once the Depression hit, Sommer became a WPA artist and completed several murals for federal art projects in northeastern Ohio.  

Sommer’s work can be found in many public collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago.