Sommer Brothers, Stoves and Hardware
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
Clarence Carter’s “portrait” of the Sommer Brothers Hardware Store in Portsmouth, Ohio, is a quaint example of the rise of American Scene painting in the 1920s. Artists associated with this trend focused on images of rural or small-town locales and often described them in a deliberately simplified form of realism related to American folk art, then rising in popularity. Carter here commemorated a thriving commercial block—well-known throughout southern Ohio—that would be damaged beyond salvage in the 1937 Ohio River flood.
Caption
Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904–2000). Sommer Brothers, Stoves and Hardware, 1928. Watercolor over graphite on off-white, thick, smooth-textured wove paper, 15 1/8 x 20 1/8 in. (38.4 x 51.1 cm) Frame: 23 15/16 x 29 15/16 x 1 1/2 in. (60.8 x 76 x 3.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Carll H. de Silver Fund, 29.65. © Estate of Clarence Holbrook Carter. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
Sommer Brothers, Stoves and Hardware
Date
1928
Geography
Place made: United States
Medium
Watercolor over graphite on off-white, thick, smooth-textured wove paper
Classification
Dimensions
15 1/8 x 20 1/8 in. (38.4 x 51.1 cm) Frame: 23 15/16 x 29 15/16 x 1 1/2 in. (60.8 x 76 x 3.8 cm)
Signatures
Signed and dated upper right: "Clarence H. Carter. 28"
Inscriptions
Graphite inscription, top right corner, verso: "125"
Credit Line
Carll H. de Silver Fund
Accession Number
29.65
Rights
© Estate of Clarence Holbrook Carter
The Brooklyn Museum holds a non-exclusive license to reproduce images of this work of art from the rights holder named here. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org. If you wish to contact the rights holder for this work, please email copyright@brooklynmuseum.org and we will assist if we can.
Have information?
Have information about an artwork? Contact us at