Vonn Cummings Sumner

Vonn Cummings Sumner trained with Wayne Thiebaud at the University of California, Davis, where he earned his BFA and MFA in painting. However, his works are a stark departure from his teacher’s decadent dessert paintings. Instead, Sumner finds levity in depicting petty criminals. Graffiti artists, bank robbers in bunny disguises, and gangs wielding painting tools as weapons run through his canvases. Sumner does take some inspiration from Thiebaud, primarily through the stark, graphic quality of his lines and his saturated, buoyant color palette. Sumner is a professor of painting at Fullerton College. In 2021, his work was featured in “Wayne Thiebaud Influencer: A New Generation” at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art alongside artists including Jonas Wood, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and Alex Israel.