News & events
June 04, 2008Carl Sammons: California Impressionist Landscapes from the Donna Walsh Sumner Collection
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Heidi Ehrman Donner Hearst Art Gallery Public Information and Programming Manager (925) 631-4069 hdonner@stmarys-ca.edu
Hearst Art Gallery, Saint Mary’s College July 12 - September 21, 2008 Opening Weekend Celebration: Sunday, July 13, 2 – 4 p.m.
MORAGA, Calif. (May 1, 2008) – Forty-nine rarely seen oil paintings and thirty-eight pastels and drawings by Carl Sammons from a vast and extraordinary private collection, is featured in at the Hearst Art Galley of Saint Mary’s College from July 12 through Sept. 21.
Sammons gained fame as a Northern California artist, yet his colors were bathed in the warmth and light of the sun more associated with Southern California painters. A talented and precise draftsman, Sammons painted a wide range of subjects, from the flowers and birds of Golden Gate Park to thundering ocean breakers to the rolling hills of the coastal ranges to the Southern California deserts.
Born in Nebraska in 1883, Sammons studied painting in Iowa with German artist F.P Frisch while supporting himself as a sign painter. He spent the years between 1913 and 1917 in Northern California and made a permanent move West in 1920, enrolling briefly in the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute. Sammons crossed the State to paint his favorite subjects over and over: the Monterey Peninsula, Russian River, Palm Springs, Humboldt County, Santa Barbara and Yosemite. Beyond the Golden State’s borders, the constant traveler also sketched and painted in many of the West’s great national parks, including Bryce, Crater Lake, Glacier, the Grand Canyon and Zion. Sammons work was on view at the 1926 California Industries Exposition in San Diego and the 1940 Golden Gate International Exposition and World’s Fair. His large oil of the Sacramento River was exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution during the 1976 Bicentennial celebration.
Among the artists with whom he was associated were Edward Borein, Albert De Rome, John Gamble, Paul Grimm, Lorenzo Latimer, and Thaddeus Welch. He was also a friend of Donald Rheem, developer of Rheem Valley, now part of Moraga. Sammons died in Oakland in 1968. In recent years his paintings have been on view at the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, the Grace Hudson Museum, Ukiah, and the Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard.
Most of the paintings are on loan from the collection of Donna Walsh Sumner, the artist’s niece. The exhibition is organized by Julie Armistead, Hearst Art Gallery Registrar and Collections Manager. A color catalog, with an essay by Douglas S. McElwain, accompanies the exhibition.
Opening Weekend Events: Sun., July 13, 2 – 4 p.m. Free Reception and Jazz Performance Beep! The Michael Coleman Trio Gallery & Art Center Patio Exhibition Admission: $3 Gallery Hours: Wed. – Sun., 11 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Main Telephone: 925.631.4379 NEW Website address: www.hearstartgallery.org
Accredited by the American Association of Museums.
### Saint Mary’s College, founded in 1863, is a residential learning community in Moraga, California based in the Catholic, Lasallian and liberal arts traditions. The college currently enrolls more than 4,000 students in undergraduate and graduate programs. The Christian Brothers, an international Catholic teaching order, guides the academic growth and spiritual character of the school.
