Description:

Robert Freimark
American, 1922-2010
Landscape, 1961
Watercolor on paper, signed and dated
An impressionist view of a forest from a high perspective, set behind glass and framed.

Painter, printmaker, filmmaker, and educator Robert Matthew Freimark, a Michigan native, moved at a young age to Toledo, Ohio, in 1932, where he developed an early boxing skill in Golden Gloves competitions before joining the U.S. Navy. After serving in the Pacific from 1939 to 1946, he enrolled at the University of Toledo on the G.I. Bill, graduating in 1950 with a BA in creative writing, then the Toledo Museum of Art where he studied with Hal Lotterman and Harvey Littleton. Freimark received his MFA in painting from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, studying architecture under Eliel Saarinen and sculpture under Carl Milles. He would also study with Max Weber and befriend Israel Abramofsky, whose Modernism influenced Friemark's early work.

Satisfied, Freimark launched his teaching career at the Toledo Museum of Art and at Ohio University in Athens, continuing to produce his own work while lecturing and jurying art shows, and from 1959 to 1963 he was Artist-in-Residence at the Des Moines Art Center, Iowa. In 1964, the family relocates to Morgan Hill, California, where, until 1984, Freimark would teach at San Jose State University.

In the 1960s Freimark was the recipient of the "Rehabilitation Through Art" grant, which he used to open an art studio and teach in Soledad State Prison. He was active in the historic 1967-68 SJSU strike by the American Federation of Teachers, which sought "Third World Studies" for the university system, and he initiated a popular class on the history of Mexican Art. In 1970-71 Freimark took a year's sabbatical, travelling Europe with his "50 States" serigraphs to exhibit, opening first at the Moravian Museum in Brno, Czechoslovakia at the height of the Cold War. Further exhibitions and lectures were held in Denmark, England and Germany.

In 1972-73 Freimark was Guest Artist at Harvard University's Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, where he was responsible for starting the lithographic studio. He worked with Warren Haack on the documentary films Dias de Los Muertos, Arte Cubano, Los Desaparecidos and Royal Chicano Air Force. Freimark set-up the Artist-in-Residence program for the National Parks, which he initiated at Yosemite in 1984. In the 1990's he helped sponsor art work to protect the landscape and wildlife at Elkhorn Slough, to protect it from destruction at the hands of development.

  • Provenance: Ex Iowa Wesleyan University collection;
    Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James Schramm, Burlington, IA, 1966
  • Dimensions: Sight: 16 1/2 x 23 in. (41.9 x 58.4 cm.), frame: 25 1/4 x 31 1/2 in. (64.1 x 80 cm.)
  • Medium: Watercolor on paper, signed and dated
  • Condition:
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July 15, 2023 10:00 AM CDT
St. Louis, MO, US

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