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About Frederick Frieseke
It seems fitting that a leading American impressionist was born during the first group show of the French impressionists in *Nadar's former studio, in the spring of 1874. Moussa Domit (1974, p. 13) called Frederick Carl Frieseke "a culminating figure of the style" of American impressionism. The artist's early success, when he won numerous prestigious medals in competitive exhibitions, is matched by such an evaluation, made decades after his death. His art was exhibited and admired throughout Europe, for instance in Italy (Venice Biennale, 1909). But for the last fifteen years of his life and several subsequent decades, Frieseke's art was unpopular; it did not sell at all for the final seven years of his life. A reviewer in the New York Herald Tribune (27 March 1932) described the artist at this time as a "painter of pretty women in an atmosphere of frou frou." Critics like Boyle (1974, p. 218) write how "his color is sugary and sweet, and his paintings are sentimental, or at best, decorative." Finally, in 2001, a beautiful exhibition and monograph (Frederick Carl Frieseke) have appeared and seem long overdue.
Frieseke was the son of Herman and Eva Graham Frieseke; his grandfather was an immigrant from Pritzerbe, Germany. A year after his mother died, the seven-year-old went to Jacksonville, Florida with his family. They stayed four years and much later, in 1921, Frieseke executed a series of watercolor "visual reminiscences" (Frieseke [1921]). The young Frederick aspired to a career as an operatic tenor but changed his plans when his voice evolved into a baritone. He went to Chicago in 1893 and saw the *World's Columbian Exposition and studied for a while at the *Art Institute of Chicago (1893-96); he moved on to New York City, where he studied, again briefly, at the *Art Students League (1896-97); and in 1897 sailed to Paris with *Will Howe Foote, his father, Elijah Foote, and Frederick Baxter. Short-lived studies exposed him to the *Académie Julian and to *James McNeill Whistler's *Académie Carmen. With the exception of a number of extended trips, for example, to Corsica in 1913 and to Samaden, Switzerland, in 1930, the painter remained in France for the rest of his life. Naturally, he investigated the popular summer painting spots: Laren, Holland in 1898, Etaples the following year, and Le Pouldu (1901), where he was still under Whistler's influence. Frieseke exhibited Woman in Park at the Salon of 1903. A year later he won a silver medal at the *St. Louis Universal Exposition.
At the *American Art Association of Paris, Frieseke met *Rodman Wanamaker, who would become the painter's early patron. He increased the artist's fame in America by commissioning murals from him around 1905 for the Wanamaker store, Rodman Wanamaker Hotel, and Amphitheater of Music in New York, as well as the Hotel Shelburne in Atlantic City, New Jersey (1905) and a music academy commissioned another mural from him entitled Four Movements of a Symphony (ca. 1907-08), which shows Watteau's influence. There was in fact a brief French Rococo revival in American mural painting: one might also recall *Everett Shinn's ceiling for the home of *Stanford White (1906-07). Frieseke stayed abroad, however, in part because of the freedom he felt from the Puritanical strain in America that rejected his imagery of *plein-air nudes. He began painting nudes in 1901 (Kilmer, 2000, p. 13) and discovered *Giverny four years later. In the United States, collectors preferred Frieseke's interiors. But the artist turned indoors only when weather banned him from sunshine, his favorite element. His scenes of women in interiors continued the *Genteel Tradition. In October 1905, Frieseke married Sarah O'Bryan in Paris. Like Frederick, Sarah was a talented vocalist. She is described as elegant and tall and came from a wealthy family.
Whereas teachers had a minimal effect on his work, according to Frieseke, he did acknowledge being influenced by other artists: he admired *Renoir enormously, as well as Botticelli, Titian, Watteau, Fragonard, Rembrandt, Lancret, *Delacroix, *Manet, *Monet, and Fantin-Latour. He adopted impressionism wholeheartedly, using *broken color and a *high-keyed palette as he painted en plein air and focused on sunshine everywhere, especially on flowers and women, clothed and unclothed. His wife and daughter posed endlessly for him in the garden at Giverny, next door to Monet, in the house that had previously belonged to *Theodore Robinson. Between 1906 and 1920, Frieseke painted prolifically in Giverny. He showed eight of his works in the *Panama-Pacific International Exposition. During the war he was with the American Red Cross Ambulance Service. He had his paintings shipped to England to prevent their destruction. In 1919 Frieseke bought a home in Normandy, where he worked until his death in 1939.
An interview that appeared in the New York Times provides the best glimpse of the rationale behind Frieseke's work. He noted, "If [as] you are looking at a mass of flowers in the sunlight of out of doors, you see a sparkle of spots of different colors; then paint them in that way. . . . In making an impression of nature, one should never consider time or method, but only the result. This may be obtained in ten minutes. . . . The effect of impressionism in general has been to open the eyes of the public to see not only sun and light, but the realization that there are new truths in nature....seeing and producing an effect of nature is not a matter of intellect, but of feeling." (MacChesney, 1914). This reliance on the senses and ignoring the intellect was criticized by International Studio (1907, p. 327) when Frieseke was categorized with "artists who only appeal to our eyes."
Frieseke became an Associate of the *National Academy of Design in 1912 and a full academician two years later. 1912 also marks the beginning of his association with William Macbeth. He never taught students, although he helped *Louis Ritman considerably at one point. Warshawsky (1931, p. 110) said Frieseke was "very kind to young painters and went out of his way to befriend the lonely." His status as an expatriate separated him from both America and France, even as he watched with distaste certain directions of *post-impressionism. Through it all the painter whose work was praised for its design and balance, as well as its quintessential impressionism, remained loyal to the style of which he was a master. His own use of color, however, was more modern than the average impressionist: even his living quarters were painted in heightened colors -- lemon yellow, emerald green, and deep blue. The decorative quality of his canvases approaches the profuse patterning of *Pierre Bonnard and other artists. For Neuhaus (1915-B), Frieseke's "clear, joyous art is typically modern, and expresses the best tendency of our day." Both Gerdts (1984, p. 265) and Derfner (1975) describe Frieseke's light as artificial.
Frieseke's exhibition activity and list of awards are phenomenal. The French government purchased one of his nudes (Before the Mirror, now in the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris), while Frieseke's Autumn is in the Museo d'Arte Moderna in Venice, which is to say that he succeeded in becoming an artist of international stature. In Frieseke's late period, studied recently by Mecklenburg (in Frederick Carl Frieseke, 2001), the artist was concerned about his success in America, where a nationalist urge was rising. At the same time, a more modernist faction thought painting should go beyond decorative impressionism. Macbeth did much to promote Frieseke's art and just before Wall Street "laid its egg," sales had improved considerably. In the 1930s, Frieseke "gave his models a more contemporary, less timeless look while maintaining a classical look: "in most of his late work he adopted a classical view. Simple lines and rounded contours provide a formal language for subjects that are themselves rich in simplicity." (Mecklenburg, 2001, p. 116).
REF.
Taylor, 1911; Gallatin, 1912; MacChesney, 1912; Pica, 1913; MacChesney, 1914-B; Taylor, 1914; Brinton, 1915, pp. 95, 97, 111; Neuhaus, 1915-B, pp. 84-85; Art in California, 1916, pl. 117; Frieseke [1921]; Neuhaus, 1931, p. 269; Warshawsky, 1931, pp. 83, 97, 110; Weller, 1966; Weller, 1968-69; Hoopes, 1972, pp. 122-123; Domit, 1973, pp. 80-84; Phillips, 1973, vol. 2, pp. 91-92; Boyle, 1974, p. 218; Domit, 1974; Kilmer, 1974; Derfner, 1975; National Academy of Design, 1975, pp. 59-60; Quick, 1976, pp. 98-99; Gerdts, 1980, p. 88; Novak and Blaugrund, 1980, pp. 179-181; Impressionnistes Américains, 1982, pp. 82-87; Kilmer and Summerford, 1982; Meixner, 1982, pp. 154-156; Gerdts, 1984, pp. 262-268; V.F.B., 1986; Preato and Langer, 1988, pp. 50, 86; A Gerdts, 1990, pp. 124-125; Gerdts, 1990, vol. 2, pp. 315-16; Gerdts, 1991, pp. 142-153; Gerdts, 1992-A, pp. 84-89, 188-194; Gerdts, 1992-B, cat. no. 31; Gerdts, 1993, pp. 171-179; Gomes, 1995, pp. 89-101; Weber, 1995-96; Kilmer, 2000; Prelinger, 2000, pp. 40-41; Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Evolution of an American Impressionist, 2001. |
Paintings by Frederick Frieseke
| Woman Reading beside a Lamp |
| Oil on canvas: 32 x 26 in. |
| signed and dated 1904: lower left |
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