VONN SUMNER in “Wayne Thiebaud Influencer: A New Generation” on view January – June 2021 at Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art

Wayne Thiebaud Influencer: A New Generation

The profound influence of Wayne Thiebaud on a new generation of artists is front and center in this celebration of the longtime UC Davis art professor’s centennial. Pairings explore how Thiebaud forecast the future of painting through his personal journey to find meaning and reinvention in the medium’s history in ways that are both current and timeless. Works by contemporary artists who have been inspired by Thiebaud as a fellow painter as well as those of former students reveal unexpected connections and sources of inspiration.

Curators: Rachel Teagle and Susie Kantor

An exhibition featuring
Andrea Bowers, Julie Bozzi (’74, MFA ’76), Christopher Brown (MFA ’76), Robert Colescott, Gene Cooper, Richard Crozier (MFA ’74), Fredric Hope, Alex Israel, Grace Munakata (’80, MFA ’85), Bruce Nauman (MA, ’66), Jason Stopa, Vonn Cummings Sumner (’98, MFA ’00), Ann Harrold Taylor (MFA ’85), Michael Tompkins (’81, MFA ’83), Clay Vorhes, Patricia Wall (’72), Jonas Wood and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

On view January 31–June 13, 2021

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  Vonn Sumner, Worry (2020)

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  Vonn Sumner, Existential Crisis (2019)

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  Vonn Sumner, Golla! A Dolla (2020)

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  Vonn Sumner, Krazy Mask (2020)

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  Vonn Sumner, Shopping (2020)

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  Vonn Sumner, Study for Don’t Worry (2020)

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  Vonn Sumner, The Elephant in the Room (2020)

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  Vonn Sumner, Watching a Dumpster Fire (2020)

Available Artwork by VONN SUMNER

Morton Fine Art, 52 O St NW #302, Washington, DC 20001

(202) 628-2787 (text or call)

info@mortonfineart.com

mortonfineart.com

VONN SUMNER’s “Bread and Circuses (and Walls) reviewed in The Washington Post

VONN SUMNER, A Big Fat Beautiful Wall, 2017, 80″x65″, acrylic and collage on linen

Vonn Sumner

• The Washington Post Sunday
• 1 Oct 2017
• by Mark Jenkins

A Californian whose ancestors lived in that state when it was still part of Mexico, Vonn Sumner is not one of the “build the wall” crowd. His response to that chant is the series of paintings in “Bread and Circuses (and Walls).” The biggest piece in the Morton Fine Art show, “A Big Fat Beautiful Wall,” stacks bricklike blocks of bright color, each rectangle graced with a traditional Mexican decorative paper appliqué. The painter also depicts barriers that almost hide the carnival-style festivities behind them.

Updating a phrase that dates to Juvenal, who satirized life in Rome almost two millennia ago, Sumner paints jesters in colorful, bellfestooned hoods. Many of the performers have loaves of Mexican-style sweet bread balanced on their heads. The clowns look sideways at the edge of the pictures, skeptically avoiding the viewer’s gaze. They don’t want to join the circus parade.

Sumner paints in a realist style, deftly employing modeling and shadow to simulate roundness and depth. Yet he intentionally simplifies, notably by using areas of intense, simple hues that suggest both comic books and color-field painting. The effect is to invoke universal forms — things that will outlast the biggest, most beautiful wall. Vonn Sumner: Bread and Circuses (and Walls) On view through Oct. 3 at Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave. NW. 202-628-2787. mortonfineart.com.

Click HERE to view available artwork by VONN SUMNER.

VONN SUMNER in American Contemporary Art Magazine

American Contemporary Art Magazine, September 2011

Vonn Sumner's Exhibition "Late Empire Style"

To view available artwork by Vonn Sumner please visit the following link:

http://www.mortonfineart.com/#/Collaborating Artists/Vonn SUMNER/1/caption

VONN SUMNER’S ‘Late Empire Style’ – Exhibition Images

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Late Empire Style

Morton Fine Art (MFA) presents Late Empire Style, a solo exhibition of new paintings by artist Vonn Sumner. The exhibition will be on display at Morton Fine Art from September 16 through October 7, 2011. The opening reception will be held on September 16^th from 6 to 8 pm with the artist in attendance.

Vonn Sumner (b. Palo Alto, CA; paintings and drawings): his fancifully eccentric characters appear in paintings which invite the viewer into a strange and isolated parallel world. Vonn Sumner’s markedly West Coast aesthetic was honored with a solo museum exhibition, The Other Side of Here, at Riverside Art Museum in late 2008. His solo show Late Empire Style at MFA runs concurrently with the artist’s second museum solo exhibition Stages at The Phillips Museum of Art in Pennsylvania. An understudy of Wayne Thiebaud, Vonn Sumner received his MFA from the University of California, Davis. His work has been shown in numerous galleries in the U.S. and Europe.