Frederick Sommer
Beato Saltador Alegre

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Artist Frederick Sommer (American, born Italy, 1905–1999)American, born Italy, 1905–1999

CultureAmerican

Titles

Beato Saltador Alegre

Date1947

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 4 13/16 × 6 3/16 in. (12.2 × 15.7 cm)
Sheet: 4 13/16 × 6 3/16 in. (12.2 × 15.7 cm)
Mount: 11 × 13 in. (27.9 × 33 cm)

Credit LineBequest of Morgan Garwood

Object number2014.173

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionThe remains of a golden heraldic device from the Renaissance? The dismembered carcass of a noble stag? A broken plastic toy on a rusty pan? Ambiguity is the root of magic in Beato Saltador Alegre (roughly “Blessed Joyful Leaper” in Portuguese, the language of Sommer’s childhood in Brazil.) Although he spent some sixty years in remote Prescott, Arizona, Sommer’s photographs, drawings, watercolors, and assemblages were informed by and exhibited next to the work of artists from seemingly antithetical currents: European Surrealists and the f/64 group of sharp-edged California photographers including Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. In works such as Beato Saltador Alegre, Sommer succeeded in making the ordinary feel utterly strange.
ProvenanceMorgan Garwood, New York; bequeathed to MFAH, 2014.
Exhibition History“A Critical Eye: Mid-Century American Photographs from the Morgan Garwood Collection,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, July 23–November 2, 2014.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

verso of mount upper left in pencil "Beato Saltador Alegre"

verso of mount center in pencil "Frederick Sommer c.1949"

Printed label on verso mount, lower right: [Logo] THE CRONIN GALLERY / 2424 Bissonnet, Houston, Texas 77005 / 713526-2548 / Frederick Sommer / Original gelatin silver photograph / Beato Saltador Alegre, (underlined) c. 1949

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