Frederick Sommer - Photographs from the Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago New York Wednesday, October 1, 2014 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Gift of David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg, 1991

  • Literature

    University of Arizona Press, Sommer Images, pl. 1 there dated 1957
    Yale University Press, The Art of Frederick Sommer: Photography, Drawing, Collage, p. 149 there dated 1959

  • Catalogue Essay

    In 1957, Frederick Sommer began to make camera-less photographs– a process that would later greatly impact contemporary photography. One of his most famous images created in this method is Paracelsus, which the photographer conjured up by squeezing oil paint between cellophane and then letting light pass through onto sensitized paper. Sommer named the resulting apparition after the Northern Renaissance doctor, alchemist and philosopher who made important contributions to both science and medicine while seeking hidden knowledge through occult practices.

    Other prints of this image are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

105

Paracelsus

1960
Gelatin silver print.
13 1/4 x 10 in. (33.7 x 25.4 cm)
Signed, titled and dated in pencil on the reverse of the mount.

Estimate
$15,000 - 20,000 

Sold for $18,750

Contact Specialist
Vanessa Kramer Hallett
Worldwide Head, Photographs
vhallett@phillips.com

Caroline Deck
Head of Sale
cdeck@phillips.com

General Enquiries:
+1 212 940 1245

Photographs from the Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago

New York Auction 1 October