Carol Summers (1925-2016) American, 1972 Monumental Woodcut, "Sierra Madre". Signed in pencil on top of red area on right, titled and numbered 28/75 on top of red area on the left.
Overall Size: 39 1/4 x 39 1/4 in.
Sight Size: 37 1/4 x 37 1/4 in.
Provenance: Peter Klipstas. Portola Valley, California.
Carol Summers has worked as an artist throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the first years of the next, outliving most of his mid-century modernist peers. Initially trained as a painter, Summers was drawn to color woodcuts around 1950 and it became his specialty thereafter. His art is known for it's large scale, saturated fields of bold color, semi-abstract treatment of landscapes from around the world and a luminescent quality achieved through a printmaking process he invented. Summers' familiarity with landscapes throughout the world is firsthand from his extensive global travels and experience as a navigator-bombardier in the Marines in World War II. Summers trained in the classical fine and studio arts at Bard College and at the Art Students League of New York. He studied painting with Steven Hirsh and printmaking with Louis Schanker. After graduating, an early abstract, Bridge No. 1, was selected for a Purchase Prize in a competition sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum. In 1952, his work, Cathedral, Construction and Icarus, was shown for the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in an exhibition of American woodcuts. In 1954, Summers received a grant from the Italian government to study for a year in Italy. A Fulbright Grant as well as Fellowships from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation followed soon thereafter, as did faculty positions at colleges and universities primarily in New York and Pennsylvania. During this period he married Elaine Smithers with whom he had one son, Kyle. Around this same time, along with fellow artist Leonard Baskin, Summers pioneered what is now referred to as the "monumental" woodcut. In addition to working in this new, larger scale, Summers simultaneously refined a printmaking process which would eventually be called the "Carol Summers Method" or the " Carol Summers Technique". In 1964, Summers' work was exhibited for a second time at the Museum of Modern Art, this time in a one-man show, and then as one of MOMA's two-year traveling exhibitions which toured throughout the United States. In subsequent years, Summers' works would be exhibited and acquired for the permanent collections of multiple museums throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Summers received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Bard College, in 1979 and was selected by the United States Information Agency to spend a year conducting painting and printmaking workshops at universities throughout India. In 1999, "Carol Summers Woodcuts, 50 Year Retrospective" exhibitions were held by the Woodstock Artists Association in New York and at the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz, California. Summers was chosen Printmaker of the Year in 2004 by the Mid-America Print Council (an outgrowth of the earlier Prairie Printmakers Association) which included a commemorative exhibition of his work at the University of Nebraska Art Center.
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