Colorado River Landscape

Getty Museum

Colorado River Landscape

Creator

Frederick Sommer

American Photographer · 1905–1999

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Artist

The son of a city planner, Frederick Sommer was trained as an architect in Brazil. He began to exhibit his drawings in Brazil while still a teenager. His work was so accomplished that he was accepted to the architecture department at Cornell University, though he had not received an undergraduate degree and did not yet speak English. Sommer purchased his first camera around 1931 while he was in Sw

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Date: 1940
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Culture: American
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

Inspired by Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, Sommer took up large-format photography in 1938. Tilting his camera downward and eliminating the horizon line, the artist filled this frame with visual information. His composition emphasizes the abstract qualities of line and texture within the landscape along the Colorado River, which is itself barely discernible beyond the foreground bluffs. The photograph has the potential to momentarily disorient a viewer searching for a recognizable subject.

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