George W. Sotter

George W. Sotter was born September 25, 1879 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During his early youth Sotter painted the rivers and mills of his hometown, but as an adult, he was actually a stained glass artist with work that grew in importance during his life in Bucks County area which he’d discovered around 1902. Sotter apprenticed with several stained-glass studios there prior to becoming a partner in the studio of Horace Rudy in Pittsburgh around 1901. Sotter was later generously given a leave of absence from his job at the stained glass studio to enroll at the Pennsylvania Academy. His employer was a former student of the academy  and had befriended many important artists during his time there. One of these may artists was Edward Redfield, whom Rudy persuaded to meet and later instruct the young artist. Sotter eventually returned to the Pittsburgh studio after the summer and fall with Redfield, but again studied at the Pennsylvania Academy from 1905-1907 with Thomas Anshutz, William Merritt Chase and Henry Keller.

In 1907, Sotter married the artist Alice Bennett who had begun working at Rudy’s studio about three years prior. In 1910, Sotter became an instructor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology's School of Fine Arts for nine years before making his way back to Bucks County. There his old friend Rudy helped him get a place in Holicong, Pennsylvania, near New Hope, in a converted 19th Century stone barn. There, in his studio, he painted his landscape scenes of Bucks County.

George W. Sotter is well remembered for his paintings of the scenic towns, farms, mills and valleys that make Bucks County such a welcoming destination.