Sommer, Frederick. Frederick Sommer at Seventy-Five by Constance W. Glenn and Jane K. Bledsoe.

California State University, 1980. Wraps, as issued.  Very good plus with a few light crimps on cover, otherwise fine. Includes text of Sommer’s “The Poetic Logic of Art and Aesthetics,” in collaboration with Stephen Aldrich, 1972. Includes chronology and list of photographs in the exhibition, in which those marked by an asterisk are illustrated with fine reproduction quality.  Printed in an edition of only 3,000 copies. Summary:

Frederick Sommer at Seventy-Five: A Retrospective, edited by Constance W. Glenn and Jane K. Bledsoe, is a richly illustrated exhibition catalogue accompanying a major solo survey of the American photographer and artist Frederick Sommer on the occasion of his 75th birthday. The book was published in 1980 by the Art Museum and Galleries at California State University, Long Beach, to coincide with a traveling retrospective exhibition that opened there and subsequently toured to other museums.

The catalogue presents a carefully curated selection of Sommer’s work from the preceding four decades, emphasizing his eclectic and experimental approach to photography. It includes about 72 pages of black-and-white and color plates of his photographs, coupled with supplementary materials such as a chronology of his life and career, lists of exhibitions and collections, a selected bibliography, and an exhibition checklist.

The visual sequence of images gives readers a sense of Sommer’s evolving artistic vision—from his early landscapes and still lifes to more abstract and conceptually driven work. Sommer’s photographs are notable for revealing the unexpected in everyday subjects by isolating forms, textures, and relationships that might otherwise go unnoticed. The catalogue also incorporates excerpts from the artist’s own writings, including portions of his 1972 poetic treatise The Poetic Logic of Art and Aesthetics, offering insight into the ideas that informed his creative process.

An introduction by Leland Rice frames the retrospective’s theme, highlighting Sommer’s lifelong quest to uncover hidden connections within the world through his art. In this way, the book serves both as a celebration of Sommer’s distinctive photographic legacy up to his seventy-fifth year and as a document of his influence as an unconventional thinker and image-maker.