George William Sotter (1879 to 1953)
As a young man, George William Sotter focused on painting the landscape surrounding the Pittsburgh countryside where he was born. Early in his career he and Horace Rudy were partners in a stained glass studio, producing masterful works for cathedrals, monasteries and churches. In 1902 he began his formal art training under Edward W. Redfield at the New Hope School in Bucks County. His studies continued under the tutelage of William Merritt Chase, Thomas Anshutz, and Henry G. Keller.
In 1907, Sotter married artist Alice Bennett of Pittsburgh and the two sojourned across Europe on an extended wedding trip where they studied and painted. Upon their return, Sotter taught painting and design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology for nine years before moving permanently to Holicong, Pennyslvania. There, in a converted stone barn of the 19th century, he furthered American Impressionism for the next thirty-four years using the rural countryside as his inspiration.
Reference note courtesy of The Coeur D’Alene Art Auction, July 2006.