John Gummere
FINE ARTS
ILLUSTRATION
GRAPHIC DESIGN
215.817.8531
jgummere@gmail.com
All images are © John Gummere
or their respective owners.
Sales inquiries welcome. No NFTs.
JOHN GUMMERE is a painter based in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He earned his BA in Architecture at Columbia University, along with Fine Arts courses both at Columbia and part-time at Mercer County Community College in New Jersey. Years after college, John returned to school as a Painting major in the Four-Year Certificate Program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), where he graduated in 1996. John is best known for his representational oil paintings that center around landscapes, cityscapes, and interior compositions. He shows his work at the Euphemia Gallery in Spring Lake, NJ, and in juried shows and solo exhibits. John’s paintings are in private and corporate collections in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and elsewhere. One of his recent commissions was a view of the Susquehanna River for Penn State Healthcare’s new medical center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He teaches workshops at the Princeton Adult School, Artworks Trenton, and Urban Promise Trenton.
This website is a work in progress, for now focusing on paintings. Please go to be.net/JohnGummere to see John’s work in graphic design and illustration.
NOW ON EXHIBIT:
”Mother + Son: Two Generations of Trenton Artists — Peggy Peplow Gummere and John Gummere” — An exhibit of my work and my mother’s. She was well known around Central NJ for her portraits. Trenton Free Public Library, 120 Academy Street, Trenton NJ.
Thru December 17.
Friday Night, Lafayette Street
(detail; click for full view)
This is also the cover illustration for
The Bookshop on Lafayette Street,
an anthology compiled by Eric Maywar.
Paintings
Oil on canvas except as noted
Interior Composition with Lizard
On the Susquehanna • Oil on panel, enlarged to mural size • sold
Penn State Healthcare commissioned this piece for their new medical center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Penn State’s committee liked my landscapes of the Delaware River and other water scenes, so I proposed this as a scene of local interest.
There Will Be Cats
Sunday Evening • sold
Hallway with the Meshkin Rug
City Hall, Philadelphia
Thirtieth Street Station
Four Bridges (On the Delaware) • 60” x 54” • sold
This was commissioned by an old friend, Joe Pica, and his wife Maureen Sullivan, who own the architecture firm Pica+Sullivan in Los Angeles. I knew Joe from years back when we were teenagers around Trenton, NJ. Joe asked me to paint something with an architectural theme related to Trenton, so this was an opportunity to work on an idea I had considered for a riverscape.
Rehearsal • This one is a spin-off from my graphic design work for the Capital Philharmonic of New Jersey. Several years ago I attended a rehearsal of the Philharmonic so this painting grew out of that. I’ve had some background in music, and I’ve always been interested in musicians as a subject for painting.
Sue on the Stairs
Artist Walks Into a Bar . . .
This won a merit award in a juried exhibit at Minot State University in North Dakota.
Assunpink Creek • sold
Calhoun Street Bridge • sold
October, South Philadelphia
Saturday Jazz • The Candle Light is a jazz venue in Trenton that attracts talent from New York and Philadelphia.
Snow in Morrisville, Bucks County
Night on the Bridge • sold
Ater the Blizzard • sold
Night in Bucks County
View from the Levee (private commission)
• sold
The Scholar • sold
Hank and Gus
Ripples
Some of my favorite subjects are interiors and water; here I did both in one piece.
On the Delaware (South Philadelphia) • sold
State Street, Winter • sold
Late August
October, Bucks County
The Reading Room
Nocturne with Fox
This one came to me when I was in our yard at night and noticed the light by my neighbor’s garage. We also actually do sometimes see foxes and other wildlife; I put in the fox to add a bit of life.
Looking Southeast (View from 8th and Spruce, Philadelphia) • sold
Night in South Jersey
Warren Street, Saturday Morning
Lake Carnegie (Princeton) in October
Delaware River, Stockton, NJ
Under the Bridge • sold
If you’ve ridden Amtrak along between New York and DC, you probably know this bridge but not from this angle. The sign “TRENTON MAKES – THE WORLD TAKES” has been a local icon since the 1930s. When I have painted it, I’ve tried showing it but not having it “in your face.” Here I’ve shown it from the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware.
Delaware River Landscape (by the Island, Trenton) • sold
Delaware River Landscape (by the Shaky Bridge, Trenton) • sold
Rocks at Cape Elizabeth, Maine
Maine Woods, Hermit Island
Boothbay Harbor, Maine
• sold
Field on Orr’s Island, Maine • sold
Maine Landscape (private commission) • sold
“What Exit?”
This one is atypical for my work:
Although I’m fairly active around social and environmental issues, I don’t often comment on those concerns directly in my art. The idea for this came to me while reading Carmageddon by Daniel Knowles — as you might guess, the book is a critical look at the way cars have dominated our modern world to the detriment of the environment and many aspects of life. I pictured a tangled web of highways like “Spaghetti Junction” in Atlanta. In the back of my mind I was also thinking of Irish interlacing designs and MC Escher drawings — though both of those incorporate a lot of order; here there is only chaos.
I grew up in New Jersey, the state with three major toll roads. When Jersey people meet, the joke is that we often ask “What exit are you near?” “What Exit?” also asks the question, “How will we ever escape this?”
Since you’re probably wondering: yes, I do drive — I try to go easy on the planet, but I’m stuck in this mess too!