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Elke
and Husband, Wolf Walther. Below:
Elke with Disney's Cartoon "Voice
and Look A Like" and various
Studio Film
Stills.
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Television
With No Borders
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You
need the FREE
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plug-in to hear Elke
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tviNEWS.net
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Welcome
Welcome
to ELKE SOMMER's ARTWORKS.
In addition to
being a well-known actress,
Ms. Sommer has dedicated
herself to producing her own
unique-style of art. Elke's
art has been presented in 39
one-woman shows and she hosted
the 13 part series "Painting
with Elke" on PBS. A select
number of Ms. Sommer's
orignals have been reproduced
as limited edition prints,
serigraphs or lithographs.
THE ARTWORKS contains
information on Ms. Sommer and
her art and includes currently
available artwork. This site
is exclusively authorized to
display, promote and sell Ms.
Sommer's artwork.
By:
Josie Cory, TVI
Magazine
THE
ELKE SOMMER
ARTWORKS
COPYRIGHT ©
2002 TVI/Elke Sommer
ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
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THE
ELKE SOMMER
ARTWORKS
(Click
Here For Art
Biography)
ELKE
SOMMER
(Art
Biography)
"I'd rather be known as a
painter who acts than as an
actress who paints," says actress
Elke
Sommer.
• • Elke was
born in Berlin, the only child of
a Lutheran minister named Peter
Schletz and his wife, Renata
Topp. Pfarrer Schletz descended
from one of the oldest families
in Germany and the family coat of
arms is dated 1225. Although she
has never used the title Elke
could, if she wished, be called
Baroness.
• • By the end
of World War II Elke's family
moved to Niederndorf, a typical
country village with red roofed
houses and storks nesting on
chimneys. On Sundays she attended
services in her father's church,
one of the oldest in
Germany.
• • A precocious
child, Elke was able to recite
Christmas songs by the age of
one. By the time she was two
years old she was making up her
own
poems.
• • Elke
remembers her childhood as the
happiest time of her life. Her
family was poor but then, she
says, so was everyone else.
Although an only child she was
never lonely. Her parents allowed
her to have as many friends and
pets as she wished. At one time
she shared the bedroom-living
room with two dogs, a cat,
hedgehog, guinea pig and two pet
mice who lived under the couch on
which she
slept.
• • After school
and on vacations she played in
the beautiful fields, meadows and
woods surrounding the village. It
was there she saw the gypsies she
so often portrays in her
work.
• • Encouraged
by her parents, Elke began to
paint with water colors on sheets
of school paper. Her mother still
has some of her early attempts at
portraying the almost fairy tale
world that was her life and would
later become a vivid part of her
memory.
• • A typical
tomboy wearing hand me down
clothes contributed by neighbors
and relatives, Elke did not own a
dress until she was almost
thirteen years old. She went to
one of the best gymnasiums (high
schools) in Germany where she
studied Latin and Greek for nine
years. On Saturdays she took art
lessons from Peter Bina, a family
friend who was a noted
painter.
• • Elke's
father died when she was
fourteen. Three years later she
graduated from high school and
decided to become an interpreter.
She arranged to go to England as
an au pair girl or mother's
helper so she could study
English. She worked for $4 a week
for more than a year and scored
well on her High Cambridge
Exams.
• • Away from
home, Elke was lonely and often
sad. During her limited spare
time she began to recall, in
watercolors, the happy scenes of
her childhood. This was a pattern
she has continued until today:
when sad she paints happy scenes
and when happy she paints sad
scenes. In all of her paintings
there is a recurring religious
motif, usually expressed by the
inclusion of a cross or church in
her work. This is a direct
tribute to the memory of her
beloved
father.
• • Soon after
her eighteenth birthday Elke went
on vacation to Viareggio, Italy
where she was discovered for
films by the famous Italian
director, Vittorio de Sica. She
worked and lived in Rome for nine
months. While waiting on film
sets or on days off she continued
painting but in a new medium,
oils.
• • As an
actress she worked in half a
dozen countries learning the
language (she speaks seven
languages fluently) and storing
up images which, later, she would
express on
canvas.
• • In 1963,
Elke came to Hollywood to star
opposite Paul Newman in her first
American film "The Prize." She
didn't know anyone in America and
lived alone in a large rented
house in Beverly Hills with only
two mice for companions. Homesick
and lonely, she spent hours of
solitude feverishly painting the
remembered happy scenes of her
childhood. Carl Foreman, director
of "The Prize", was the first
person to purchase one of her
paintings.
• • After her
marriage in 1964 to an American
journalist she settled down in
Beverly Hills in a large house
with a huge living room with
tempting bare walls. Elke started
to paint in earnest using
anything at hand for a canvas.
Some of her early works were on
her husband's shirt cardboard's,
on wrapping paper and boards.
Only a few were on canvas but
they all had a central theme:
they were a projection of her
childhood combined with fantasies
about the way life should be. The
illustrious Italian painter Amen,
who was then living in Los
Angeles, helped her to develop
the style for which she is now so
well
known.
• • On sunny
days Elke who is a nature lover
painted in the nude in her
enclosed backyard. She had
discovered acrylics and worked
without an easel. She laid the
canvas flat on the ground or on
the living room floor. Soon the
walls of the living room were
hung with her works. Friends who
saw them suggested she have a one
woman show.
• • That first
show in 1965 at the McKenzie
Galleries in Beverly Hills was a
success. She sold eighteen of
thirty paintings and local art
critics were generous with their
acclaim. Her biggest compliment,
however, came when she was told
that a man who bought one of her
large canvases asked about the
artist. He didn't know that Elke
Sommer was also star of seventy
feature
films.
• • Since that
first showing, Elke has had
thirty-nine woman shows at such
prominent galleries as: The
California Museum of Art, Science
and Industry; Beach Nash Gallery,
Beverly Hills; Schumacher
Galleries, Munich; Bayerischer
Hof, Munich; Galeria Del Arte
Moderna, Rome; Kunsthaus, Berlin;
Marshall Fields, Chicago; Center
Art Gallery, Honolulu; Mid-Town
Gallery, Chicago. Her most recent
show in April 1998 at Richard
Danskin Galleries, Palm Desert,
CA.
• • In 1988 she
was also commissioned to do a
painting of Stockholm for the
Norway Chamber of Commerce. She
also starred in a widely
acclaimed series of instructional
half-hour shows on painting for
PBS called "Painting with
Elke".
• • Critics have
always given Elke fulsome praise
but she is more interested in
public acceptance. At an early
showing, George Bach, a prominent
psychiatrist, bought one of
Elke's paintings to hang in his
waiting room. "It expresses
closeness and communication, just
what I am seeking to get across
to may patients," he said. "In
each of Elke's painting the
people are in group contact,
physically close or touching and
relating to each other. That's
what life is all about."
Respectfully
Submitted,
Josie
Cory,
Publisher/Editor
TVI Magazine
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