About Sumner Winebaum

Sumner Winebaum, a York, Maine artist, was born in Portsmouth, NH in 1928 and graduated with an English degree from University of Michigan. Sumner started his long career path in advertising at Young & Rubicam in New York City in the “Mad Men” era and was a pioneer in television advertising. He then took his wife and two boys to London, Milan and Paris to open and run Young & Rubicam’s offices there. He moved back to New Hampshire in 1967 to take over Winebaum News. He is married to Helen Auerbach, a former actress and now a leading land conservationist in Maine, and has two sons and four grandchildren.

Throughout his very successful business career, Sumner took art classes at night, initially at Art Student League of New York, initially focusing on drawing. However, he soon discovered sculpture and fell in love with the medium of clay. He believed that everybody should have at least three different careers in their lifetime so after he sold Winebaum News in 1981, he devoted himself to a career as a sculptor. Most of Sumner’s sculptures are in bronze; however, before they are cast, they are hand sculpted by building up small pieces of clay. While the subject of Sumner’s sculpture is very representational, his sculptures evoke a sense of craft and abstraction through his layering of clay. Sumner has exhibited in galleries in New York City and throughout New England, and is represented in a wide range of private and museum collections, including his commissions for the York Hospital, Temple Israel, Hartley Mason Reservation, and soon to be installed on Mount Agamenticus.