This biography from the Archives of AskART:
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 The
artist and graphic designer Richard Karlovich Zommer was born in Munich
in 1866. From 1884 he studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine
Arts and had considerable success, receiving several awards for his
work. Zommer’s most prolific period relates to the last decade of the
nineteenth century, which he spent in Asia, where he was sent in an
archaeological expedition and worked as an ethnologist. During this
period he produced a series of portraits, landscapes and works on paper,
twenty of which can be found in the Museum of Uzbekistan.
At the beginning of the twentieth century Zommer went to Georgia,
where he led an active life, traveling extensively. He walked almost
the entirety of the Caucasus Mountains and produced a number of works
during this period that provide a fascinating insight into the Caucasus
from an ethnographic point of view, as well as glimpses of everyday
occurrences and situations. His charming works characteristically
display his love for truth and simplicity, and are executed using deep
strong colours. Each of his works is particular in its composition, and
each tells a story.
Many Georgian artists in the course of the twentieth century were
forced to take on governmental jobs; however, Zommer succeeded as a
preserver of Georgian arts. Describing the world as it truly was, he
was a guardian of truth and key in the creative development of Georgian
painter Lado Gudiashvili.
Zommer was Gudiashvili’s first teacher and it was Zommer who
encouraged the young talented artist to enrol at the Academy of arts in
Tbilisi. The academy had a series of distinguished teachers including
the Italian painter Longo, the German painter Oskar Schmerling,
and the Georgian painter Jakob Nikolades, student of the French
sculpture August Rodin. Gudiashvili thought fondly of Zommer, recalling
that he was a very articulate, jovial man with red hair, who was
popular with everybody and always wore a red scarf around his neck: ’I
saw him as someone who stepped out of a Rembrandt painting’.
Zommer had predicted a great career for Gudiashvili, and in December
1926, the two exhibited together at an exhibition in Tbilisi.
Gudiashvili was by now well known and had his own distinct style.
However, one wonders whether Gudiashvili’s passion for Georgia and its
landscape was perhaps instilled by Zommer’s own particular and
relentless obsession with the diversity of the surrounding landscape.
Zommer was a member of many art groups, and exhibited at various
exhibitions in St. Petersburg between 1916 and 1920. He was one of the
founders of the Society for Encouraging the Caucasian Decorative Arts in
Tbilisi, and took part in various exhibitions organised by the
Caucasian painters society, between 1916 and 1920 in Tbilissi, in Baku
in 1907 and in Taschkent in 1915.
For one of Zommer’s exhibitions, the Georgian journalist Michael Dschawachisschwili wrote a review in the newspaper Znobis Purzeli.
Dschawachischwili praised Zommer as a great artist, able to express a
form of realism in an outstanding way. He commented: ‘There is
liveliness and holiness reflected in his landscapes, portraits and in
his representations of historical monuments.’
During the 1930s, Georgian intellectuals and artists suffered under
the Stalinist regime, and in 1939 Zommer was forced to leave Georgia.
After this period his exact whereabouts are unknown, this can in part be
explained by the fact that all ethnic Germans were relocated to Siberia
and Kazakhstan before World War II.
What is clear is that Zommer had a remarkable and dynamic life.
Always on the move, he explored man and his character, creating pictures
in his individual and unique way, and provided an important role in the
history of twentieth century Georgian painting.
Collections
Zommer is represented in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, amongst other collections.
Online Source: http://www.sphinxfineart.com/Zommer-Richard-Karlovich-DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=45&tabindex=44&artistid=18424
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