Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 13

Miriam Sommerburg
Carved Wood German Expressionist Sculpture Jewish Woman Refugee Artist Judaica

c.1950s

$2,200
£1,692.39
€1,964.38
CA$3,102.53
A$3,475.35
CHF 1,825.38
MX$42,259.14
NOK 23,115.26
SEK 21,942.60
DKK 14,660.92

About the Item

Miriam Sommerburg (American female artist, born Germany, Hamburg, 1900–1980 New York) Modernist Wood Carved Sculpture, Carving depicting a family group. Before being forced to flee Germany during the outbreak of World War II, Miriam Sommerburg had an established career as a prominent and sought-after woodcut artist. There she studied with Richard Luksch (he belonged to the group around Gustav Klimt and left the Wiener Sezession with him in 1905. Created works for the Wiener Werkstatte) and Friederich Alder. Ultimately, she settled in the United States and began to explore a vast range of materials and techniques, including oil painting, watercolor, other methods of printmaking, and wood carving sculpture. At times, she applied her woodblock techniques to these new media—for example, by using incisions to add texture to a painting. Sommerberg was interested in exploring relationships and human emotions, which did not waver through her move. She famously said, “Art doesn’t belong on a pedestal. It belongs to the ordinary people and should be treated honestly.” Sommerburg would find international renown and go on to have her works displayed at the Boston Art Museum, the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. and the Ghetto Fighters House Archives at Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot, a community of Holocaust refugees and survivors, among them fighters of the ghetto undergrounds and partisan units in Israel. In 1944, as the Allies continued to gain ground in Europe and the Nazi atrocities came to light, President Franklin D. Roosevelt allowed 1000 refugees into the country as personal guests. These guests would be staying at Fort Ontario in the city of Oswego, New York. Refugees came from Italy, Germany, and many other countries throughout Europe. Miriam was one of those refugees who stayed at the fort in the 1940s. Miriam Sommerburg went to Greenwich Village New York after the Shelter closed in 1946 and produced an impressive body of work. She held nine one woman shows, won numerous prizes and watched her work being added to the permanent collections of several museums, including the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. She studied with Richard Luksich and Friedrich Adler. She exhibited at Syracuse Museum, California Society of Etchers, Society of American Graphic Art, Allied Art of America, Audubon Artists, National Association of Women Artists, Boston Art Museum and was invited to participate in the Ford Foundation Grants and the Academy of Arts & Letters.
  • Creator:
    Miriam Sommerburg (1908 - 1980, German)
  • Creation Year:
    c.1950s
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 13 in (33.02 cm)Width: 12 in (30.48 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    good. minor wear commensurate with age.
  • Gallery Location:
    Surfside, FL
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU38215143182

More From This Seller

View All
Rare Chaim Goldberg Kaszmirez Polish Modernist Memorial Sculpture Spertus Museum
By Chaïm Goldberg
Located in Surfside, FL
Deaccessioned from the Spertus Museum in Chicago Hand signed by artist in wood carving Chaim Goldberg -- born in the Polish shtetl of Kazimierz Dolny Chaim Goldberg has worked in ne...
Category

Mid-20th Century Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Wood

Cuban Master Florencio Gelabert Sculpture Large Wood Carving Bust Man Portrait
Located in Surfside, FL
Florencio Gelabert Y Perez (Cuban, 1904-1995) Hand carved, signed; 1979 Materials: Cuban wood (mahogany?) Dimensions 23 X 4 X 4 inches Label affixed to underside: National Registry of Cultural Assets of the Republic of Cuba Ministry of Culture. Provenance: Art Master Collection, Miami, Florida. Florencio Gelabert, with a style reminiscent of Art Deco and Art Nouveau in a Latin American Expressionist stylization. Carved wood sculpture. Depicts a modernist stylized form of a man in a streamline moderne style. José Florencio Gelabert Pérez (Caibarien, 1904 - Havana, 1995) Cuban musician, sculptor, draftsman and teacher. He graduated from the San Alejandro National Academy of Fine Arts in 1934. He received numerous awards, mentions and recognitions in Fine Arts Halls and Circles. His works are in the permanent collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts. Florencio Gelabert is a renowned sculptor, who made more than twenty solo exhibitions beginning in 1929, several in the National Museum of Fine Arts, and participated in more than thirty collectives in Cuba, Spain and Brazil, the latter in the Sao Paulo Biennial. he traveled from Caibarién to Santa Clara in 1928 to audition to enter the famous San Alejandro Fine Arts School in Havana. He obtained one of the five vacancies. Already in the Cuban capital, he combined fine arts and music. When he graduated, he became a professor in San Alejandro and the academy’s principal in 1960. With a calling common to wood sculptors –which began with his primary school carving carpentry classes and the active life of his home town’s shipyards, his chisels and gouges feverishly turned mahogany, “ácana” and ebony into female heads with black African features dating back to 1930. In 1938 he used his savings to explore Europe: France (Paris, Marseilles), Italy (Naples, Rome, Florence, and Venice), Belgium (Malina). His encounter with the works by Aristide Maillol, Auguste Rodin, Ossip Zadkine, Constantin Brancusi and even with Wifredo Lam, who was also born in another Cuban coastal area, Sagua la Grande, and his encounter with the nude marble David sculpture...
Category

1970s Art Deco Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Wood

Art Deco Expressionist Bronze Judaica Rabbi Sculpture Los Angeles Modernist
By Peter Krasnow
Located in Surfside, FL
Bronze Jewish Rabbi. Original Patina. Art-deco wood carved base. It is signed with initials P.K. and marked "Calif Art Bronze Fdry LA" (California Art Bronze Foundry Los Angeles). it is not dated. PETER KRASNOW (1886-1979), Russian-Ukrainian, American artist painter and sculptor, born Feivish Reisberg, was a California modernist and colorist artist known for his abstract wood sculptures and architectonic hard-edge paintings and drawings which were often based on Hebrew calligraphy and other subjects related to his Jewish heritage...
Category

1930s Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Philippe Cognee Carved Painting Expressionist Wood Relief Sculpture African Art
Located in Surfside, FL
Roughly hewn and painted, carved wooden sculpture. Hand signed and dated. Provenance Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, (accompanied with copy of original invoice dated 1986.) This was from his show Out of Africa. Expressionist paintings and carved reliefs at the Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago His first one-man exhibition in the United States, the show featured multidimensional and multi-media work with influences from Africa and nature. Philippe Cognée...
Category

1980s Neo-Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Wood, Oil

Rare Belgian Marble Jewish American Modernist Sculpture Chaim Gross Art Deco
By Chaim Gross
Located in Surfside, FL
This is a wonderful original hand carved unique marble sculpture by one of America's most treasured artists, Chaim Gross. For more than sixty years Chaim Gross's art has expressed op...
Category

20th Century American Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Marble

Brutalist German Israeli Hand Carved Wooden DADA Sculpture Ben Yaakov
By Jochanan Ben Yaakov
Located in Surfside, FL
Johanan Ben Yaakov was born in 1913 in Germany. He immigrated to Palestine-Eretz-Israel in 1933. He Studied in 1943 in Bezalel, Jerusalem together with Mordechai Ardon and Isidore As...
Category

Mid-20th Century Arte Povera Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Wood, Mixed Media

You May Also Like

Wood Sculpture, by French Designer 1950
Located in Auribeau sur Siagne, FR
This sculpture is in solid wood. Hand carved by a french artist in the 1950's It is signed P.Leclerc.
Category

Vintage 1950s French Mid-Century Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Wood

Wood Sculpture, by French Designer 1950
$419 Sale Price
20% Off
Free Shipping
Mario Dal Fabbro, Wood Sculpture, United States, C. 1983
By Mario Dal Fabbro
Located in New York, NY
In this sculptural study by dal Fabbro, the viewer's expectations are reversed. What may at first seem figural becomes abstract as one moves around the piece, revealing the artist's ...
Category

20th Century American Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Wood

Vintage Hand Carved Wood Abstract Sculpture
Located in West Palm Beach, FL
Fantastic vintage hand carved wood sculpture. A beautiful and serene abstract depiction of a figure in prayer. Gorgeous wood grain detail in a...
Category

Mid-20th Century Bohemian Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Wood

José De Creeft Female Totem Carved Wood Sculpture
By Jose Mariano de Creeft
Located in Forney, TX
José De Creeft (1884-1982) Female Totem wood carving sculpture Provenance / Acquisition: Property from the important collection of the late Robert Gingold (1944-2017) Highly reputable auction house Heritage Auctions, Dallas, Texas had the pleasure of presenting numerous items from the world renowned Art Deco collection of Robert Gingold in their May Design Auction catalog, May 25th, 2017. The current owner acquired this remarkable example from Shultz Auctioneers, Clearance, New York, from consigner Kenneth Dukoff collection, an important Buffalo, New York antiques...
Category

Mid-20th Century American Rustic Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Wood

Cubist Wooden Sculpture
Located in Richmond, VA
Abstract hand-carved wood sculpture with a stepped, angular form and faceted planes. The silhouette evokes Cubist influences with its blocky geometry and softened edges. Signed Kalle...
Category

20th Century Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Wood

French Mid Century Abstract Free Form Carved Timber Sculpture
Located in London, GB
A mid-20th century carved timber sculpture of fluid, abstract form. Sadly unsigned but beautifully sculpted. French, c. 1950s.
Category

Mid-20th Century French Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Elm