Clemens Sommer
Clemens Sommer (born September 16, 1891 in Cottbus ; died March 11, 1962 in Chapel Hill (North Carolina) ) was a German-American art historian.
Life
Clemens Ernst Josef Sommer was a son of the professional soldier and general Maximilian Josef Sommer and Josefa von Radowitz . SS General Ernst von Radowitz was a brother of his mother.
Sommer grew up in Freiburg im Breisgau and graduated from high school in Wertheim in 1911 . He studied natural sciences, law, history and art history at the Universities of Freiburg im Breisgau, Munich and Würzburg. During the First World War he was only limited due to illness and not used at the front and studied on the other time. He received his doctorate in 1919 in Freiburg with Hans Jantzen with a dissertation on Boniface VIII .
From 1920 to 1922, Sommer worked as a research assistant at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome. From 1922 to 1926 he worked as an assistant at the Augustinermuseum in Freiburg and published on the "Madonna Figures on the Upper Rhine" (1925). After that he was unemployed and researched for his habilitation thesis on Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden , which he presented in Greifswald in 1932. Sommer married the art historian Elisabeth Müller in 1928, they had two children, their son Maximilian Josef Sommer , born in 1934, became an actor.
After the transfer of power to the National Socialists , Sommer joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933 (membership number 2,147,279), after the so-called Röhm Putsch he became a member of the SA on October 15, 1934 , and he also became a member of the NSLB, in the NSV and in the RLB. In 1933 and 1934, Sommer received travel grants for research in Scandinavia . In 1934 he was given a teaching position for Nordic art history at the University of Greifswald and held the vacant chair there in 1935/36. In 1937 lecturers with Jewish wives were asked to get a divorce, so with effect from January 1, 1938, Sommer's license to teach on the basis of Section 18 of the Reich Habilitation Regulations was revoked. Sommer emigrated with his family to the USA via Sweden .
In 1939, Sommer was a visiting professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , where he was promoted to associate professor in 1940 and full professor in 1947 . Sommer was granted US citizenship in 1947. He participated in the purchase of pieces for the North Carolina Museum of Art , which opened in 1956 and for which the State of North Carolina provided a budget of one million dollars in 1947. Sommer died in a car accident in 1962.
Fonts (selection)
- The charge of idolatry against Pope Boniface VIII and his portrait statues . Freiburg, dissertation 1920
literature
- Sommer, Clemens , in: Ulrike Wendland: Biographical Handbook of German-Speaking Art Historians in Exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism . Munich: Saur, 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , pp. 649-651
- Sommer, Clemens , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933–1945 . Volume 2.2. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 1093
- Clemens Sommer memorial issue . Bulletin (North Carolina Museum of Art), v. 9, no. 3/4. Raleigh, North Carolina: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1970.
Web links
- Literature by and about Clemens Sommer in the catalog of the German National Library
- Sommer, Clemens , at WorldCat, unadjusted library inventory
- Clemens Sommer , at the University of Greifswald
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Summer, Clemens |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Summer, Clemens Ernst Josef |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-American art historian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 16, 1891 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | cottbus |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 11, 1962 |
| Place of death | Chapel Hill |