Description
This following biography was researched, compiled, and written by Geoffrey K. Fleming, Executive Director, Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV. and provided to Askart.
EDWIN C. SAUTER (December 6, 1895 – July 26, 1966)
A.K.A. “Edwin Charles Scott Sauter”
Painter in oil and watercolor, illustrator, art director. Born in Schenectady, New York, the son of Mary E. Scott (1858 – 1957) and Louis Sauter (1863 – 1910). His father was a barber in Schenectady, where the family resided on State Street.
Edwin Sauter graduated from Schenectady High School in 1915 and planned to head off to study at Union College that autumn, but it is unclear if he did so. Drafted during World War I (1914 – 18), he saw service as a musician in the 303 rd Infantry. After the war concluded, Sauter attended the Art Students League of New York where he studied painting under George Elmer Browne (1871 – 1946) and Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889 – 1953).
After his studies he returned to Schenectady, where he joined General Electric as a staff artist and soon jumped into the local art scene. In 1922 he was selected by the local American Legion to paint an oil depicting a legionnaire for the organization’s annual Field Day. The image, based on a local resident, was reproduced as the poster and cover of the souvenir program, and was also exhibited at the Adirondack Power and Light Corporation building. During this period, Sauter resided in Schenectady with his widowed mother and his brother, Robert, who was also an artist. In 1925 he traveled to France, perhaps to study further, returning to New York City aboard the S.S. De Grasse on October 31, 1925.
By the 1930s, Sauter was serving regularly as one of the judges for art related contests in addition to exhibiting with The Studio Club of Schenectady. In 1930 he showed with the club where his work Die Lorelei, which depicted a “a modernistic interpretation of siren of the Rhine...” received positive attention in the local press. The following year he served as one of the judges for the Schenectady Gazette photography competition and in 1936 served as one of the judges of the Tri-City Art Exhibition.
In addition to his duties at G.E., in 1931 Sauter began teaching painting and drawing at TheStudio School of Art in Schenectady. Sauter oversaw the 1933 exhibition of works created by his night class students which was made up of young men whom he worked alongside at General Electric. Personally, his own paintings and watercolors were the subject of a solo exhibition at the Albany Institute of History and Art, located in Albany, New York, in 1932. As an illustrator he worked for The Schenectadian, which was “a very New Yorker-esque magazine published from 1933 to 1935,” where he created the art for the June 1934 cover.
In about 1938 or 1939, Sauter moved his family to the Bridgeport region of Connecticut, where he took over as the director for the art department at the G.E. facility located in that city. By 1942 he was residing with his family in Fairfield, Connecticut. In the early 1950s he moved again, this time to Louisville, Kentucky where he helped setup General Electric’s new art division at Appliance Park. There, he and his team were in “…charge of arranging art displays, advertising and promotion.” Sauter retired from his position in 1954, but remained in Louisville, where he was active in the local art scene.
Edwin C. Sauter died on Tuesday, the 26 th of July 1966 at the Glenmary Nursing Home in Louisville, Kentucky at the age of seventy years. His funeral was organized from Pearson’s on Breckinridge Lane followed by internment in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.
As a painter, Sauter was known for his depictions of American and European Landscapes in addition to mythological themed works like “Die Lorelei” mentioned above. His paintings are very much in the style generally associated with the W.P.A. period and are usually signed “Edwin C. Sauter.” Sauter was a member of the Art Directors Club of New York, Arts Club of Louisville, Louisville Art Center Association and the Westport Artist Association.
Though there are undoubtedly other exhibitions in which Sauter participated, those presently known include the following: Field Day, Schenectady, NY, 1922; The Studio Club, Schenectady, NY, 1930; Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY, 1932 (solo); Art Directors Club of New York, NY, (u.d.); Arts Club of Louisville, Louisville, KY, (u.d.); Louisville Art Center Association, Louisville, KY, (u.d.); Westport Artist Association, Westport, KY, (u.d.). Sauter’s works are not known to be in any public collections, though a number reside in private collections throughout the United States.
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EDWIN C. SAUTER Original Mid Century oil painting of a Pretty Gypsy Woman
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