Marshall Fredericks

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Marshall Maynard Fredericks (January 31, 1908 – April 4, 1998), an American sculptor.

Early life and education

Fredericks was born of Scandinavian descent in Rock Island, Illinois, on January 31, 1908. His family migrated to Florida for a short time and then settled in Cleveland, where he grew up. He graduated from the Cleveland School of Art in 1930 and went to Sweden for a scholarship to study with Carl Milles (1875-1955). After several months of study in other academies and private studios in Denmark, Germany, France, and Italy, he has travelled extensively in Europe and North Africa.

Milles urged him to join Cranbrook Academy of Art and Cranbrook and Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he served until he enlisted in the armed forces in 1942. Fredericks was honorably discharged from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in 1945.

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Career

Fredericks won a contest in 1936 to build the Levi L. Barbour Memorial Fountain on Belle Isle in Detroit. This was to be the first of many public monuments built by Fredericks. The sculptor continued working on his numerous commissions for fountains, monuments, free-standing sculptures, reliefs, and portraits in bronze and other materials after World War II. Many of his paintings have a vivacious humor, a warm and delicate humanist spirit, as they did in Fredericks himself.

Fredericks has been coveted and coveted for his artistic and humanitarian works. He exhibited his work internationally and internationally, and many of his creations are in national, civic, and private collections. He was accepted as an Associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1957 and became a full Academician in 1961.

He and his wife Rosalind Cooke lived in Birmingham, Michigan, until his death on April 4, 1998. The couple had five children and eight grandchildren. He owned studios on 4113 North Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak and East Long Lake Road in Bloomfield Hills until his death. His estate donated the contents of both studios to the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum on the campus of Saginaw Valley State University in Saginaw, Michigan.

Peace Fountain of Eternal Life on the Mall in Downtown Cleveland was installed to honor those who served in World War II. "IN HONORED MEMORY OF THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY." The project was 20 years in the making and was dedicated on May 31, 1964.

Four groups of emerald pearl granite from Norway, each 4 by 12 feet (1.2 by 3.7 m), represent the highest figures in world history that lay the basis for the soaring figure that symbolizes eternal life. The figure was cast in Norway, where also the granite groups were carved. In Brooklyn, New York, the globe under the statue was cast. The four groups represent the four "corners" of the Earth, from which the major religions originated, which in turn gave rise to the belief of eternal life, as shown by the human figure in the center of the sculpture.

Fredericks was one of six artists invited to create sculpture for Northland Shopping Center in Southfield, Michigan. Northland was both the country's biggest shopping center and the country's first regional shopping center when it opened in 1954. The architects intended for sculpture to play a significant role in the shopping center's courts and malls. Fredericks conceived this sculpture with children in mind. He gave the bear a benevolent appearance with his other large animal sculptures, so it would not frighten children. This bear could be the child's best friend. The comparison between the massive body of the bear and the boy's almost frail body emphasizes this particular relationship. The bear's head has been lowered, signaling only amicable intentions. Its erect ears and furrowed brow all indicate an interest in a viewer at this low eye level. Fredericks' depiction of the bear isn't entirely accurate, but he did a good job with his animal sculptures by portraying the bear as in a child's imagination. Children and adults alike enjoyed the sculpture in Northland from the time it was first installed until it was closed in 2015. The center was purchased by the city of Southfield in 2016 and moved the sculpture to the Southfield Public Library's lobby.

Despite similarities between this sculpture and the characters in Walt Disney's 1967 film The Jungle Book, Fredericks disapproved of Disney's influence, The Jungle Book, which was first published in 1894, or its author, Rudyard Kipling. Fredericks said he simply wanted to make a sculpture of a boy and bear because it would be amusing. This sculpture, which is on display at the Fredricks Sculpture Gallery, is a younger version of this bronze sculpture. In the children's room of the Grosse Pointe Public Library and in Grand Rapids' Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, a similar cast is on display.

Fredericks was hired to sculpt a 6-foot (1.8 m) crucifix but instead created this 28-foot (8.5 m) full-scale model for a bronze to be placed at the Indian River Catholic Shrine in Indian River, Michigan. The bronze Corpus is mounted on a 55-foot (17 meter) redwood cross. When it was completed in 1959, it was thought to be the world's largest crucifix. Since then, a 65-foot (20 m) crucifix was erected in Bardstown, Kentucky, but the Corpus on this work is only 14 feet (4.3 meters).

The Indian River figure took only three years to complete, but the plaster model on which it was based in need of seven years of restoration before being on permanent display at the Fredricks Sculpture Museum. Since the bronze was cast, it suffered from neglect during the two-decades it was in storage at the foundry in Scandinavia. Fredericks chose not to portray Jesus' pain and agony, but instead, left out the crown of thorns and the wound on the figure's side. Rather, he holds the robust body of Jesus at peace in the days after death.

The Freedom of the Human Spirit was first sculpted for the 1964 World's Fair in New York City and then displayed in the Court of States.

Fredericks is quoted in a story about the Human spirit. The Human Spirit is expressed in this way: the freedom of the human spirit is portrayed.

"I tried to take the male and female figures and free them from the earth." They are only noticed in space at all because they are kept in the air by some sort of semi-visible abstract shapes, and then there are three giant wind swans flying with them. The theory was that these human beings, these people-us, do not have to be limited to the earth and not have to be tied to the ground. We can free ourselves physically and spiritually whenever we want to, if we only want to do so."

In 1996, this sculpture was moved to Arthur Ashe Stadium at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City's plaza. Fredericks donated a casting of the work to Birmingham, Michigan, for the city's fiftieth anniversary. It is located in Shain Park, Ohio.

This sculpture was the first commission work for which Marshall Fredericks was paid. The sculpture received first prize in a national competition in 1936, and as a result, Fredericks became well-known as a public sculptor. Fredericks made four animals that aren't native to Michigan and arranged them around the gazelle on Belle Isle. These animals include otter, grouse, hawk, and rabbit. The gazelle was sculpted by Fredericks in a characteristic of wheeling, in which an animal changes direction when being pursued by a predator.

The Leaping Gazelle is one of Frederick's most exacting sculptures. It can be obtained at many locations, including Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina, where it was one of the four Purchase prize winners of a national open sculpture competition in 1972.

This sculpture, according to Frederick, depicts Aesop's Fable of "The Lion and the Mouse." A lion caught a mouse in the tale. As the lion was about to eat him, the mouse begged for mercy, promising to help the lion one day. The lion was so confused by the prospect of a tiny mouse assisting the king of the jungle that he freed the mouse. The mouse emerged from the lion stranded in a hunter's net and gnawed through the wires to free him some time later. The mouse was retrieved from the lion's paw in a different version of the tale, but it was impossible to grasp by the lion's teeth. Kindness is rarely rejected, whether it be to the tiniest or poorest of animals, according to a fitting moral. Fredericks brought the tale together by contrasting the tiny mouse with the much larger lion.

In 1957, the J. L. Hudson Company created this sculpture for the Eastland Center in Harper Woods, Michigan. He conceived it specifically for children, as well as some of Frederick's sculptures. Both animals are portrayed with friendly facial expressions. The lion's reclined position and his crossed legs are very human, yet his massive round head is stylized with coiled ringlets and his knees are abstracted, although his knees are not. These natural variations make the king of the jungle non-threatening to children and adults alike.

Lord Byron, the nineteenth-century Romantic poet who was associated with a haughty, melancholy mood, inspired Fredericks as a youth. Lord Byron is depicted in a dramatic portrait with his head thrown back and his hand raised to his forehead. He seems to be mired in inner turmoil relating to the poet's melancholic life. Lord Byron's left leg was marginally shorter than his right, and he was concerned about his lameness. Fredericks nailed this feature of Byron's life by dressing him draped in a long cape that partially obscures his legs. The Bronze full-scale sculpture on the campus of Saginaw Valley State University was cast in 1999.

In 1964, the Man and the Expanding Universe Fountain was installed in the United States Department of State Headquarters Building in Washington, D.C.'s South Court.

The fountain was built to celebrate the nation's first space explorations. The monumental central figure depicts a superhuman mythological being. He is seated on a 10-foot (3.0 m) sphere, encrusted with a slew of stars of various magnitudes, arranged in a sequence of the celestial system's bright-star constellations. He holds two planets in his hands that he is sending off into space. His hair, which is made in jagged lightning-like styles, is studded with clusters of multi-pointed stars. The luminous spiral orbital orbit-form spinning around the sphere shows the astronomical speed and continuous movement of the heavenly bodies in space. The play of the water in a spiral pattern from countless star-shaped sprays is intended to improve the sense of movement on the figure, sphere, and orbit.

The fountain's basin is lined with colored glass mosaic tiles. The central figure and sphere are bronze, while the orbit, planets, water spouts, and the actors in the hair and on the surface of the sphere are made of nickel alloy. The sculpture "represents this period of great curiosity, exploration, and discovery in outer space," Fredericks says, "as well as the immensity, order, and mystery of the universe."

The fountain was built for the Henry G. McMorran Auditorium in Port Huron, Michigan. On the building that was completed in 1957, two years before the fountain's installation, Fredericks also produced a gold anodized aluminum Sculptured Clock. The sculptures and clock were created as a cohesive whole.

The sculptor personified time with figures representing night and day, in keeping with a long tradition of western art. In the lines of the swan in flight beneath her, the night has long, smooth, graceful curves that are repeated in the lines. In comparison, the day is more angular and his muscles are more noticeable, as are the veins in the arms and hands. On a flight of Northern pike and Night floats, a swan is seen asleep, clutching a small bird in her hand.

The Night and Day Fountain can also be seen at the Fredricks Sculpture Gallery.

Fredericks made the complete model for the Coleman A's 16-foot-tall (4.9 m) figure, starting from a tiny model. The Young Municipal Center in Detroit is located. Sculptors usually create a small model or maquette for monumental sculpture, then scale to larger scales. This gives the opportunity to work out compositional details prior to the development of the large, complicated, and time-consuming full-scale model. With a point-up or pantograph machine, the model can be enlarged. In the Sculptor's Studio, three of the smaller models are on display.

Fredericks denied that he had ever identified the piece. "The theme was a verse from the Bible (2 Corinthians 3:17); now the Lord is that Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is found, liberty is found." "I attempted to capture the spirit of man through deity and family," says the author.

Since being installed in 1958, it was widely known as The Spirit of Detroit. Not only did Fredericks waive his design fee for this work, but it did not cost him more to produce. However, he believed that this was simply a part of his civic duty.

In 2013, art dealer and art historian Eric Ian Hornak Spoutz was quoted in The Detroit News as claiming that the statue's value is in excess of $1,000,000.

Fredericks created this sculpture after Cranbrook Educational Community founder George Gough Booth, a Cranbrook Cultural Society founder, requested that he make a "Thinker" for the Cranbrook Art Museum steps, a cast of which is on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The pose, according to Fredericks' Thinker, is a direct reference to Rodin's sculpture; however, Fredericks' replacement of Rodin's heroic male nude with a bemused chimpanzee is a thought-provoking addition to the earlier sculpture, which reveals his admiration for primates. When Booth discovered the chimp stroking his chin in a compact manner, he said it was not like Rodin would have done, but Booth was sure the chimp had more interesting thoughts than most of us.

In 1962, the Two Bears were first introduced in Urbana, Illinois, and they were originally intended for Lincoln Square. In deep contemplation, a large and small bear sits back-to-back. These two animals are threatening in nature, but Fredericks depicts them in a sympathetic manner, stressing tolerance. The bears are noticeably different in terms of their ears and noses, and the little bear features Fredericks' trademark teardrop-kneecap sculpting style. The Thinker, Lion and Mouse, and the Male Baboon and Female Baboon sculptures are among other sculptures that feature this characteristic.

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