Frederick Carl Frieseke: Associations

"The Garden Parasol" by Frederick Carl Frieseke

"The Friesekes and the Richard Miller and his wife were fast friends. Miller, who had arrived in Paris shortly after Fred, was well connected in America, achieved European success quite early, and showed generous admiration for Fred's work. Invited to fill a room at the Venice Biennial in 1909 with his own paintings, he offered to share the space with Fred.

It is at the Eighth International Exhibition in Venice in April-May 1909 that we find the first important offering of outdoor subjects by Frieseke. Here were some of the major plein air themes that would come to be associated with his summer work during the next decade: the woman in the garden, the nude sunbather, and the woman in a boat in shadowy water. 

As he turned his attention to the out of doors and thus subjected himself to a far-from-controlled environment, Frieseke remained the methodical and meticulous painter who had trained under Whistler. The 1910 portrait by Karl Anderson shows Frieseke in bow tie, smock, and Panama hat, painting a nude outdoors. He holds the same array of brushes as he might have in the academy, one brush set aside for each of the colors that had been mixed beforehand.

Frieseke had known Karl Anderson when both were students at the Art Institute of Chicago, and both had traveled in Holland in the summer of 1898. They renewed their friendship, traveling together with Richard Miller in Venice and Florence in 1909. Anderson spent time in Giverny in both 1909 and 1910. He became one of the so-called Giverny luminists who exhibited together at Henry Fitch Taylor's Madison Art Gallery in December 1910. 

For Frieseke's career, this first venture into the commercial world of New York was of crucial importance, and as a result he came to the notice of William and Robert Macbeth, the most successful and influential of the New York dealers."

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.)