Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Inner Thoughts of an Artist

"Woman Before a Mirror"
by Frederick Carl Frieseke

"The O'Bryans had gone back to the United States in February of 1901 and would not return to Paris until October 1903 - to Fred and Sadie's dismay - but to our profit, since the separation led to an enlightening exchange of letters. For this reason we are able to over hear the painter as he describes his progress with a painting and struggles with his definition of himself as an artist. He seems a man both modest and determined. As he wrote, 'My father told an aunt of mine once, 'Fred never says much but he does and gets what he wants.' Here are a few excerpts from these letters:

January 14, 1902: 'Am working hard on a picture and think it will come out pretty well... It's so hard to paint anything good - something that has artistic merit and is solid and well drawn and good color. It's maddening knowing what you want to do and not being able to do it. Perhaps I may some day. Who knows? Anyway, I get a little nearer all the time.'

January 20, 1902: 'Well, I finished my picture... I think it is pretty successful. Am sure it's better than last year's but can't hope for the same success to be repeated. It will probably be some years before other important steps will take place in my progress and it means so much hard plug and worry and disappointment that I lose courage when I think of it. This week I am doing nothing. Have no model.'

February 4, 1902: 'Things haven't been going well with me lately. Last week I destroyed my picture that I had been working five weeks on and it was the best one I had done in - only - just - because I couldn't get it to suit me quite. I lost my head and scraped the whole thing out. Have already started another of the same subject though and I hope to make it better than the last. If only I had someone to watch me and make me stop when I should I might paint much better things. I want you to come and watch me dear... I must hustle pretty hard or I won't have anything of importance for the Salon.'

February 18, 1902: 'I do so want to be a good painter and it's so beastly hard to do anything good. I'm most discouraged. One gets a thing done and is most pleased with it - for about a day - then you can't stand the sight of it any more. I just long for the time when I shall do something that I shall continue to like.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Frederick Carl Frieseke: A Biography by Nicholas Kilmer" in Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Evolution of an American Impressionist"published on the occasion of an exhibition of Frieseke's work.)  

 

Frederick Carl Frieseke: Calisthenics for the Artist

"Grey day on the river (Two Ladies in a Boat)"
by Frederick Carl Frieseke 

"Paris was no place for artists during the summer months. It was uncomfortably hot, and all of the other artists were gone. In the summer of 1901 Frieseke set off with a group of fellows for a three-months' stay in Brittany in the little fishing village )by this time also artist colony) of Le Pouldu. Excited by the series he had begun in the Luxembourg Gardens during the spring, Frieseke intended to concentrate on landscape.

His letters from Le Pouldu describe his surroundings and some of the summer's events:

We are staying in a private house, a fine old country house, part of it built in 1728, so it says on the sun dial... The country seems so lovely, and the sea and the river too... It seems so peaceful down here. The people are so slow and I like everything: the black and white cows, the narrow little lanes with the trees meeting overhead, the dunes with one lonely cottage almost hidden, and the farms, houses of stone with thatched roofs and surrounded by trees which the sea winds have blown and twisted in strange shapes.

I have to confess that landscape is by far the most difficult thing I have tackled and that I am utterly unable to grasp it so far.

Not long after his return from Brittany at the end of August, when Paris had begun to slide into the peculiar damp and sooty light of its winter, Frieseke began the first of a lifelong series of studio nudes. The study of the nude in the classroom atelier is as common to an artist as calisthenics are to an athlete. As a subject to command the attention of even an unruly student, the human body is hard to beat. It is straightforward, complex, varied, compelling, amusing, and measurable. And it is a valuable teaching tool since it either does or does not translate believably from three dimensions to a two-dimensional place. Its skin exhibits a surprising variety of colors in an excruciating sequence of almost indistinguishable shifts. 

But Frieseke was now out of the classroom and was looking to build a reputation. For him the nude subject must be not just a study but also a work of art." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Frederick Carl Frieseke: A Biography by Nicholas Kilmer" in Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Evolution of an American Impressionist"published on the occasion of an exhibition of Frieseke's work.)    

Frederick Carl Frieseke: Sadie

"Girl Dressing Her Hair"
by Frederick Carl Frieseke

"By this time Frederick Carl Frieseke had met the young woman who was to become his wife. Sarah Anne O'Bryan of Pittsburgh, known as Sadie, was the daughter of John Duross O'Bryan, an American jurist who had made and lost a series of fortunes in speculative ventures in the American West. O'Bryan was in the habit of bringing his wife and members of his large family to Paris from time to time, and in the late 1890s he still had two daughters to 'finish,' Sadie and her younger sister Janet. Sadie, highly intelligent, vivid, and variously talented, was subject to parents who never would have smiled upon educating her for a serious career. In Paris she studied drawing and painting as well as voice and cello. She and Frieseke met in Paris soon after his arrival. Their mutual attraction was speedy. Very early on they had agreed to a sort of provisional engagement, which was thwarted, however, by Sadie's father, who was opposed to the idea of his daughter marrying an artist.

Despite the regular income from Wanamaker's Frieseke was poor. His living and studio space was probably as cheap as could be found in the outskirts of Montparnasse. Henry Ossawa Tanner, who managed to live in very straightened circumstances, had space in the same building. Tanner was his senior by fifteen years and also an habitué of the American Art Association. The two became lifelong friends. In the neighboring spaces were the Australian painters James MacDonald, Ambrose Patterson, and Hugh Ramsay. The young men did much in common, shared meals and information, traveled together, and both criticized and borrowed from each other's work. They shared models as well, thus spreading the cost, and were on hand to cheer or bait one another."

(Excerpts from "Frederick Carl Frieseke: A Biography by Nicholas Kilmer" in Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Evolution of an American Impressionist"published on the occasion of an exhibition of Frieseke's work.)    

 

 

Frederick Carl Frieseke: Associations

"Selecting a Necklace" by Frederick Carl Frieseke

"The same year that Frederick Carl Frieseke had spent the summer sketching in Holland, James McNeill Whistler founded his Académie Carmen. Named for his Neapolitan model Carmen Rossi (who had posed for Rodin's 'The Kiss'), the Académie Carmen followed the formula devised by Julian, in which a model was available all day. Off the rue Notre Dame des Champs, the academy was in the midst of the Montparnasse artists' quarter. Frieseke attended it, as did Will Howe Foote, whose son later passed along a description of the instructional style of the master. 

When he did appear among the students, Whistler would do so in full dress - cane, gloves, and all - followed by an attendant. When the great man was moved to do so he would pause before a cringing student's wet canvas and, using the tips of his gloved fingers, inscribe corrections into the paint. He would then cast the soiled glove aside, accept a fresh glove from the attendant, and, slipping it on, proceed to the next student. Whistler, finding Frieseke at work in watercolor, thought enough of his efforts to suggest that he change to oils. Already a superior draftsman, with a line both accurate and elegant, Frieseke now added to this foundation instruction in the use of oils according to Whistler's method.

Soon after his arrival in Paris Frieseke made his way to the American Art Association of Paris, on the boulevard du Montparnasse. This club had the backing of such prominent Americans as Whitelaw Reid, minister to France, and Rodman Wanamaker, son of the department store magnate John Wanamaker. The club held regular exhibitions, where members could see each other's work. It also held special programs, and Frieseke would on occasion make spirited drawings for these. As a result there followed an invitation to become the illustrator of catalogues and advertisements for John Wanamaker's stores in Philadelphia and New York 'at a large salary,' an offer that Frieseke was able to finesse into a more modest arrangement that allowed him to remain in Paris. He agreed to provide Wanamaker with a regular supply of drawings in exchange for a salary that would cover his living expenses. The association with the Wanamakers was to continue, and to lead to significant commissions in later years."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Frederick Carl Frieseke: A Biography by Nicholas Kilmer" in Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Evolution of an American Impressionist"published on the occasion of an exhibition of Frieseke's work.)   

Frederick Carl Frieseke: Studies Abroad

"Woman in the Light of a Window"
by Frederick Carl Freiseke

"Although Frederick Carl Frieseke had set out to be no more than a journeyman draftsman producing the line drawings that were much in demand by the publishing industry, the young man changed course, deciding to become an artist. No doubt he was encouraged by such colleagues as Lawton Parker, then in his third year at the Art Students League, as well as by the larger cultural life of New York. 

Again with backing from his father - $500 this time - in September 1897 Frieseke sailed for France on the SS Massachusetts. With him was Will Howe Foote, a lifelong friend and fellow Michigander who had also been a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. Montparnasse, an historic neighborhood on the Left Bank in Paris, was to remain his home as long as he lived in Paris. This area, very much favored by Americans, attracted the chic as well as the least affluent of the young art students who flocked to Paris - the necessary place to come, both for their education and to introduce themselves into the pecking order of a thriving art establishment whose grand old men controlled access to the academies, the salons, and all hope of advancement.

Frieseke enrolled in the Acadèmie Julian in 1897 or 1898. Sometime prior to 1901, he engaged at least the criticism, and possibly the tutelage, of the painter Auguste Delecluse, who maintained an academy in Montparnasse. In 1890 Delecluse had joined the rebellious group seceding from the Société des Artiste Français and founded a new Salon, the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. It was in the latter Salon that Frieseke, barely off the boat, exhibited three watercolors in April-May of 1899.

 During his first summer abroad, Frieseke went on a sketching trip to Holland, working exclusively in watercolor. His subject was primarily the landscape, as seen and rendered in the browns that were the academic mainstay of the period."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Frederick Carl Frieseke: A Biography by Nicholas Kilmer" in Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Evolution of an American Impressionist"published on the occasion of an exhibition of Frieseke's work.)   

 

Frederick Carl Frieseke: Birth

"Self-Portrait, 1938" by Frederick Carl Frieseke

"Frederick Carl Frieseke was born in 1874, one of the first generation of Friesekes born in the United States. At the time of his birth in 1874 much of the country was still wilderness, and many of its inhabitants had only recently arrived from Europe. In 1858 the artist's grandfather, Frederick Frieseke, a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, arrived in Owosso, a small town in central Michigan. His sons Julius and Herman Carl enlisted in the Union cause, and once they had both completed their tours of duty, Herman established an operation to manufacture brick and drain tile from the local salmon-colored clay. The first paved streets in Owosso were surfaced with Frieseke brick and many of the town's buildings were made from the same material. Herman married Eva Graham of Owosso. Their first child, Edith, was born in 1871; Frederick Carl, the second, in 1874. Fred was six when his mother died.

In 1881, after his wife's death, Herman went to Jacksonville, Florida, taking the children with him. He remained there for the next four years, establishing a brick-making operation, but then went back to Michigan.The stay in Florida when Fred was at an impressionable age was to remain in his imagination, and late in his life, when he considered returning to the United States, it was toward Florida that he turned his thoughts.

He was sent to the public schools of Owosso. He drew continually but nonetheless graduated from Owosso's public high school. Although the drawings in his textbooks reveal the true course of his early talent, he was then - and continued to be - an avid reader, beginning with such rags-to-riches sagas as the Horatio Alger series and Charles Dickens' 'David Copperfield.' His course was set when, at the age of nineteen, he visited the art pavilion of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Here, in the midst of the visual riot of paintings, posters, and prints, he first recognized that there might be a living to be made with the talent for drawing he had been idly developing.

He attended classes at the Art Institute of Chicago between 1893 and 1896. Having mastered some basics, and confident in his skill as a draftsman, he persuaded his father to stake him to a season in New York. With $200 in journey money he made for New York, where he enrolled in the men's afternoon life class at the Art Students League. His plan was to make his living by selling cartoon drawings to such periodicals as 'Puck,' 'Truth,' and the 'New York Times.'

'I remember I didn't much like my winter in New York,' he wrote later to his fiancée. 'I was doing jokes, and it wasn't much to joke about, trying to make a living out of them. If I had had more success, though, I should never have come abroad, never have painted, and most important of all should never have know the dearest girl in the world.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Frederick Carl Frieseke: A Biography by Nicholas Kilmer" in Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Evolution of an American Impressionist"published on the occasion of an exhibition of Frieseke's work.)   

Daniel Chester French: A Heritage of Beauty

"Death and the Young Warrior" by Daniel French

"At the age of eighty-one, Daniel French took to his bed more frequently than ever, repeatedly felled by unspecified illnesses. In September he suffered a heart attack, but stubbornly refusing to be hospitalized, remained at home to convalesce. 'Mr. French may live to a hundred, and I hope he does,' commented his neighbor, 'but when the end comes, he will be found still working, like the artist in his own beautiful piece which stands in the Metropolitan Museum called 'Death and the Sculptor.' In truth, French's working days at the studio had come to an end.

On October 6, 1931, the ailing old sculptor summoned the strength to leave his bed while a nurse changed the sheets. He used the opportunity to glance out the window to take in the splendid view that had first enthralled him four decades earlier: his long-inspiring Chesterwood realm, so rich in memories of creative accomplishment and family happiness. The next morning Daniel Chester French died - as customary with him, without further word - in his sleep.

The funeral took place on Sunday, October 11, in the flower-bedecked Chesterwood studio, with his sculptures serving as a backdrop, and several of his plaster models arranged beside his coffin. Most conspicuous of all was his beckoning angel 'The Genius of Creation,' its hands outstretched toward the bier as if in blessing. Nearby stood the large model for the enthroned Lincoln, with French's many medals and awards arrayed at its base. To another side rested an unfinished bust in clay of Daniel Webster, with the working tools just as he had left them the last day he was in the studio.

During the memorial service, Frank Stockbridge read a poem he had composed to honor his friend:

'Where the great craftsmen stand
Close to the Throne -
Ageless the Sculptor's hand,
Flawless the stone -
There shall these hands work on
For work's pure joy alone,
Find in Celestial stone
Beauty unknown.'

French's onetime model, Rosalie Miller, whose musical studies the sculptor had helped to fund, then sang two hymns, ending with Schubert's 'Rest in Peace.' Afterwards, French's ashes returned to Concord for interment at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where his 'Melvin Memorial' still stood. The gravestone was simple. Beneath a laurel wreath designed by his daughter, just four words were inscribed: 'A Heritage of Beauty.'"

(Excerpts from "Monument Man: The Life & Art of Daniel Chester French" by Harold Holzer.)