American, 1849 - 1908
The son of a physician, Frederick Freer is said to have taken up the study of art at age fourteen, when he became partially deaf. Four years later he left for Munich but was called home in 1872 following the Chicago fire. He remained in America for five years (four at home and one in Mexico) before returning to complete his training at the Royal Academy in Munich. He studied under Wilhelm von Diez and Alexander von Wagner. Among his American friends in Munich were William Merritt Chase, J. Frank Currier, and Frank Duveneck.
Returning to Chicago in 1880, Freer held a disastrous auction of his Munich work and then moved to New York. For several years he worked quietly, mainly in watercolor, until his first major success in 1887. That year he showed a portrait of his wife (Margaret C. Keenan, whom he married in 1886 and painted many times) at the Academy; it became known as Lady in Black. Its favorable critical reception established his reputation as a painter of feminine beauty. By 1892, however, Freer had moved back to Chicago, where he taught at the School of the Art Institute until his death. He was a founder and early president of the Chicago Society of Artists. In his later years, although he continued exhibiting in the Midwest and in Academy annuals, he became known primarily as a teacher.
"Through withdrawal to the scene of his later labors, and his too infrequent contributions to the exhibitions of the Academy," the posthumous Academy tribute noted with regret, "Mr. Freer's work is perhaps less well known to the New York of
to-day than it deserves to be." His widow subsequently presented a large body of his work to the Montgomery (Ala.) Museum of Fine Arts.
JD
Returning to Chicago in 1880, Freer held a disastrous auction of his Munich work and then moved to New York. For several years he worked quietly, mainly in watercolor, until his first major success in 1887. That year he showed a portrait of his wife (Margaret C. Keenan, whom he married in 1886 and painted many times) at the Academy; it became known as Lady in Black. Its favorable critical reception established his reputation as a painter of feminine beauty. By 1892, however, Freer had moved back to Chicago, where he taught at the School of the Art Institute until his death. He was a founder and early president of the Chicago Society of Artists. In his later years, although he continued exhibiting in the Midwest and in Academy annuals, he became known primarily as a teacher.
"Through withdrawal to the scene of his later labors, and his too infrequent contributions to the exhibitions of the Academy," the posthumous Academy tribute noted with regret, "Mr. Freer's work is perhaps less well known to the New York of
to-day than it deserves to be." His widow subsequently presented a large body of his work to the Montgomery (Ala.) Museum of Fine Arts.
JD
