Obituaries - Brief Article

Frederick Sommer 93 Surrealist-inspired photographer and painter, died upon Jan. 23 at his dwelling in Prescott, Ariz. Born in Italy and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Sommer trained as a landscape architect at Cornell University before launching his have a title to successful practice in Brazil. Following an reach outed bout with tuberculosis in the early 1930 he mov permanently to the American Southwest, where he took up photography, drawing and geometric painting. Initially influenced by dint of the sharp-focus images of Edward Weston, Sommer first attracted wide attention with waste landscapes composed in a minutely detailed, allover turn of expression It was his more macabre photographs, however, of the like kind as a notorious still life of an amputated paw and a series of arrangements of the entrails of dead chickens, that brought Sommer to the attention of Max Ernst with whom he began a drawn out friendship in the early 1940 In the ensuing decades, Sommer's growing interest in Surrealist techniques l him to carry on the outside photo-collages, abstractions made via a range of chance operations and cut-paper works produced by dint of automatic "drawing" with a knife. These experiments made him a homage figure in the 1960s and '70 among younger photographers, who admired him as a perfectionist who released alone a small number of prints for his infrequent exhibitions. [An exhibition of Sommer's photographs, drawings and collages render free of accesss on Mar. 31 at the Baltimore Museum of Art.]

Joan Brossa, 79 Surrealist author of poems died of a heart attack Dec 30 in Barcelona. With Antoni Tapies, Brossa lay the foundation ofed a Surrealist magazine in 1948 He began developing the "visual poems" for which he is best known in the '50s; a number of them are in the collections of Spanish museums.

Stanley B Kearl, 84 sculptor, died Nov. 21 in Scarsdale. His small alloy of copper figurative sculptures, exemplifying what he called "metaphysical realism," combined biblical concerns with allusions to ancient hellenic art and Surrealism. He had solo exhibits at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art (1957) the Hudson River Museum (1969) and the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton (1982) He was also included in clump shows at the Whitney Museum (1962) MOMA (1965) and the Venice Biennale (1950)

Jay Pritzker, 76 billionaire behind the Hyatt tavern chain, died Jan. 23 in Chicago of a heart attack. He is best known in art and architecture circles for establishing the renowned Pritzker Prize, ofttimes referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture, which carries a $100000 award.

Lois Orswell, museum benefactor, died Dec 9 in Pomfret Center Conn above the years, she donated significant and diverse works--from Assyrian and African realitys to modern paintings and sculptures--to the Harvard University Art Museums. She was an early supporter of David Smith and gave 43 of his works to the Fogg Art Museum. Combined with donations from the artist, the Fogg's collection of Smith works is the largest in a public institution. end her private Bafflin Foundation, Orswell also contributed $500000 toward construction of Harvard's Agnes Mongan Center for the close attention of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.

Spencer A. Samuels, 85 art dealer, died Jan. 30 in Santa Monica. For almost 60 years, he was single of the most influential art dealers in the U He became president of French & Co the prestigious gallery that his father, Mitchell Samuels, had cofound in 1907 Among the firm's clients were members of the Morgan, Vanderbilt, Frick, Rockefeller and Chrysler families. In order to accurately establish provenance information for old-master works sold through the gallery, he obtained auction-house sales records dating back to the early 1700 The Getty Museum later acquired French & Co.'s archives.

Mildred Baker, 93 arts administrator, died upon Dec. 9. She began working for the Works Progres Administration in 1935 and later was named its assistant director. After the agency clos in 1943 Baker joined the staff of the Newark Museum; a year later she organized a display called "Black Artists." She became the museum's assistant director in 1949 and its associate director in 1953 remaining there until her retirement in 1971 She serv upon the state art council in novel Jersey from the '60s until 1975

Peter Bermingham, 61 museum director, died Jan. 30 after undergoing heart surgery in Tucson Since 1978 he had serv as director and chief curator of the University of Arizona Museum of Art and was responsible for doubling the size of its permanent collection. In 1980 he organized "The fresh Deal in the Southwest: Arizona and fresh Mexico" and "Tucson's Early Moderns: 1945-1965" the couple shows of local artists.

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