Artist's Estates

The Estate of Walter Felix Sorge

Canadian-born artist Walter Sorge was a Modernist whose work exhibits many periods and styles. Foremost he was a formalist creating both gestural abstractions and geometric Color Field compositions. He worked in a variety of mediums, but was also a very accomplished printmaker in the 20th century. Sorge received his B.A. and M.A. at UCLA, and went on to receive his Ed.D. degrees in Fine Arts and Education from Columbia. He worked in the famed Atelier 17 in Paris as an apprentice to the celebrated Surrealist painter and printmaker Stanley William Hayter, who had a strong influence on his printmaking. After Paris, he returned to the United States to create and teach art.

In 1985, Sorge took a sabbatical in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China, where he produced over 100 watercolors influenced by the Chinese tradition, many of which bear a red seal of his name in Chinese characters. In 1994, he took another sabbatical in Israel, during which he produced a series of works featuring Israeli locals, landscapes, and cityscapes. In short, his work has been significantly influenced by his life-long travels.

As an instructor, he served as head of the Art Departments at Kentucky Southern College in Louisville, Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, and at Eastern Illinois University. Sorge had many solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions both nationally and internationally in New York, Ottawa, France, New Mexico, Kentucky, California, England, Israel, and Turkey among other places. Institutions that have exhibited and collected his work include the Metropolitan Center in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the National Fine Arts in Bermuda.

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The Estate of Color Field Painter and Post-Modernist Walter Stomps, Jr.

(Bowling Green, KY, 1929-2020)

Caza Sikes is extremely excited to be the sole representative for the estate of Walter Stomps, Jr. (Bowling Green, KY, 1929-2020).

The late Water Stomps, Jr. was a dynamic painter for over 70 years. After completing his study at the Art Institute of Chicago (1959), he held teaching posts at the Middletown Fine Arts Center, Dayton Arts Institute, and for over 4 decades at Western Kentucky University.

Throughout his career, Stomps. Jr. vigorously produced work in the vein of the American Color Field painters and Abstract Expressionists. One calls to mind the work of Frank Stella, Ken Noland, Victor Vasarelly or Kandinsky. Stomps, Jr. exhibited at numerous institutions in the Midwest throughout his career, including the Cincinnati Art Museum, Dayton Art Institute, Owensboro Museum of Art, and the J.B. Speed Museum of Art.

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The Collection of Sheila Bonser

(Ohio, 1934 -)

After attending classes at the  Univ. of Cincinnati in OH and UCLA in CA, Sheila graduated from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio with a BFA double degree in painting and printmaking, having studied under Raymond Must and Barry Gealt.

From 1958 to 1961 she was raising a family and painting watercolor landscapes of the rustic west coast of Florida.  After Moving to Dayton OH in 1962, she worked mainly in oils, Intaglio prints, collographs and mixed media collages. In the mid-1960’s she received a prestigious commission to paint a wall mural for the City of Troy Ohio.  Moving to the Cincinnati area in 1964, she continued working in oils, large-scale collages and intaglio prints and was represented by the Malton Gallery, then the Miller Gallery until 1981.

Another major life move to New Orleans, LA in 1981 inspired a new body of work in collage and mixed media, photography and many series of intaglio and collgogram prints made on her own press.  Her work was represented by the Carol Robinson Gallery.  She showed annually with the Slidell Art League at the Cultural Center.

In 2005 tragedy struck, Hurricane Katrina destroyed her home and studio. After returning to Ohio Valley in 2006 to be nearer family, she resumed working in oils, collage and painted a series of watercolors “en plain air” of Gregory Creek in Westchester near her home.  The seasonal changes of the creek landscape inspired her paintings until 2018. Sheila showed most recently with the members of the Fitton Center for the Creative Arts in Hamilton OH.

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