Although George Sotter is best known for his paintings of night scenes and dramatic vistas of huge cloud formations, The Sunny Harbor is a fine example of his marine paintings. Painted in the popular artists’ colony of Gloucester, Massachusetts, this work epitomizes the style of Sotter's seascapes. Here, he has captured the vitality of the bustling harbor using quick energetic brushwork. The setting is idyllic, and Sotter has depicted harbor bathed in the warm afternoon sunlight of a summer's day.

George Sotter was born in Pittsburgh in 1879. One of the early members of the New Hope art colony, Sotter first visited the area in 1898 to study with William Lathrop. He spent the following summers in Bucks County until moving there permanently in 1902, studying under Edward Redfield and Daniel Garber. That same year, he participated in the annual exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He continued his studies at the Academy under William Merritt Chase, Thomas Anshutz and Henry Keller.

In 1907, he married artist Alice E. Bennett of Pittsburgh, whom he first met at the Rudy Brothers Stained Glass Studio. On an extended wedding trip abroad, the couple studied and painted throughout Europe. For nine years, Sotter taught design and painting at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Then, in 1919, he and his wife moved permanently to a historic home, a converted 19th century stone barn, in Holicong, Bucks County. There, in his studio, he painted landscape scenes of Bucks County and fashioned stained glass windows that remain extant in cathedrals, churches, and monasteries throughout the country.

Sotter was especially adept at painting winter night scenes, and consistently won the favorite painting ballot (cast by his artist colleagues) at the Fall exhibitions at Phillips Mill in New Hope. He exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915 where he won a Silver Medal; at the National Academy of Design in 1913 and 1921; at the Pittsburgh Arts Society in 1917 where he won 1st Place; and the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts in 1923.

George Sotter's works can be found at the Reading Museum, State College (Pennsylvania), James A. Michener Art Museum, LaSalle University Art Museum, and The Woodmere Art Museum.