Emily Bausch Summa

Emily Summa was a St. Louis painter known for her landscapes. She was originally from Mannheim, Germany, and immigrated to the United States as a child in 1871. Prior to her formal art education, Summa studied at Central High School with Frederick Oakes Sylvester, one of the eminent St. Louis landscape painters of his day. This early influence helped to encourage Summa’s interest in art and landscape painting.

Summa received her formal training at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, where she continued to study with Sylvester, and also studied under Edgar Bissell and Dawson Dawson-Watson. Working primarily in oil, Summa’s treatment of landscape was sensitive, making use of soft, delicate colors and short, rapid brush strokes. She was particularly noted for her ability to render water. Writing in 1926, one critic noted how “Mrs. Summa’s painting is like the melody of Schumann or Chopin. Some of her landscapes have the tonal quality of Grieg…,” suggesting that Summa, who previously studied music, imbued her work with a dynamism or energy that was as much like music as visual art (St. Louis Globe-Democrat, March 7, 1926).

In 1914, Summa suffered a fall that resulted in an injury to her spine, after which she entered a period of isolation and reflection at her home in Cuba, Missouri. During this time, Summa spent time studying and sketching with nature as her teacher. This capacity for introspection and self-instruction led to her studying with the illustrator Paul Berdanier, a fellow St. Louis School of Fine Arts alumnus, who referred to Summa as “a real genius” (St. Louis Globe-Democrat, March 27, 1927).

Summa was active in the St. Louis art community. A member of the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, the St. Louis Art League, and the St. Louis Society of Artists, Summa exhibited frequently both with those organizations and independently. However, Summa was confronted with controversy when she was nominated in 1910 for membership in the Twentieth-Century Art Club. When the artist was nominated by then-president H.L. King, a contingent of club members refused to confirm her membership because of a technicality relating to the organization’s constitution, though Summa herself maintained that the actual reason was due to jealousy.

Despite the rejection of the Twentieth-Century Art Club, Summa remained a respected figure in the St. Louis art world. She continued to actively paint until 1927, when she died of pneumonia. Her funeral was held at the Artists' Guild. She is buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.

Following Summa's death, art columnist Emily Grant Hutchings reminisced that “She belonged to us (St. Louis), heart and soul” (St. Louis Globe-Democrat, March 27, 1927).