SKU: 11190
Barnett Freedman
(1901 - 1958)
The farmer and his wife, at the roadside, mid 1920’s
£1,900
Barnett Freedman (1901 - 1958)
£1,950
Size:
Height – 54.6cm
Width – 37.5cm
1 in stock
Literature: Llewellyn, Sacha, and Paul Liss. Portrait of an Artist. Liss Llewellyn, 2021, p.185.
This portrait – of Claudia Guercio;- was presented to the models father around the time of her engagement to Freedman (in 1926 ) the year they married – their match initially was kept secret from her disapproving parents. Claudia and Barnett lived in two rooms near the Euston Road, one of which Freedman used as a studio as he sought to combine theatrical activities with oil painting, remarking later I nearly starved’.
Claudia Guercio at her engagement to Barnett Freedman
Barnett Freedman is quite rightly held in the highest regard by those who are interested in such things. But his wife Claudia is almost forgotten. She was born Claudia Guercio in Formby, Liverpool, of Anglo-Sicilian parentage. She studied at Liverpool School of Art and the Royal College of Art. Working initially under her maiden name, she took the name Claudia Freedman on her marriage to Barnett Freedman in 1930. Compared to her husband, Claudia Freedman’s output was relatively small, but works such as the autolithographed book My Toy Cupboard (undated but published in the 1940s by Noel Carrington’s Transatlantic Arts) show that she had a talent equal to his.
We are grateful to Vince Freedman, the artist’s son, for his assistance and Neil Philip for the above text.
Illustrator, painter, printmaker and teacher, Freedman was born to Russian Jewish immigrants living in poverty in the East End of London. In 1916, he worked as draughtsman to a monumental mason, and at the same time took evening classes at St Martin’s School of Art. In 1922, he won a three-year scholarship to the Royal College of Art. In 1928, he joined the staff of the Royal College, and not long afterwards began to teach at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford. He soon became a pioneer in the revival of colour lithography. He was an Official War Artist in World War II. By the time of his death Freedman had established an enviable reputation as an illustrator and designer of posters, stamps, books and book-jackets. He believed that there was no such thing as commercial art, ‘only good art and bad art’. His first exhibition was held in 1929 at the Literary Bookshop, Bloomsbury. A memorial exhibition was organised by the Arts Council in 1958. Manchester Polytechnic, which holds the Freedman archive, held a major show in 1990. Examples of his work are in the collection of the Tate Gallery.
With thanks to artbiogs.co.uk
