Untitled 1991

Frederick Sommer made this untitled drawing with graphite and colored pencil. It's all about process, with delicate lines building up form and volume. The drawing has this anatomical feel, like a study, yet it’s also deeply surreal. The rendering is so precise, yet the subject matter, with its multiple hands, and foetus, becomes something else. The graphite gives it a soft, almost dreamlike quality, while the colored pencil adds subtle hints of warmth. Look at the way the hands cradle the foetus, the lines describing the forms are both tender and clinical. I'm reminded of the drawings of medical illustrations and the prints of Durer. But Sommer’s surreal edge takes it somewhere entirely new. It’s a drawing that lingers in your mind, like a half-remembered dream, where the boundaries of reality blur. It embraces ambiguity, inviting us to find our own meaning within its delicate lines.