Carol Summers was born in Kingston, New York. He studied at Bard College with Louis Schanker. Combining teaching with a successful career as a printmaker, Summers taught at Hunter College, the Brooklyn Museum School, Pratt Graphics Center, and Columbia University.
Summers produced his first woodcut prints in the early 1950s. By the 1960s he was making abstract, highly colored images that often reflect the mood of the landscapes he saw in his travels to Europe, East Asia, and across America. Most often working in woodcut, his compositions rely on large, strong, abstract shapes, often overlaid with smaller forms in contrasting hues.
[This is an excerpt from the interactive companion program to the videodisc American Art from the National Gallery of Art. Produced by the Department of Education Resources, this teaching resource is one of the Gallery's free-loan educational programs.]
