(Courtesy Photo)
Join the Shiawassee Arts Center on Sunday, April 7 in celebrating the 150th birthday of Frederick C. Frieseke (1874-1939), one Owosso’s famous native sons and world-renowned Impressionist artists. A delicious Sunday brunch, including Abiding in the Vine chicken casserole and desserts from The Cheesecake House, will be served beginning at 12 p.m. Reservations, which include a special Frieseke gift item, are $30 for SAC members and $35 for guests. Call (989) 723-8354 or visit shiawasseearts.org by Monday, April 1. This event is sponsored by Cherie and Harlow Murray.
Called one of the “culminating figures among American Impressionists,” Frederick C. Frieseke was born in Owosso on April 7, 1874 to German-American parents. His childhood home at 654 North Water St. was built of bricks from his father’s brick plant – as were many additional Owosso homes and businesses.
After graduating from Owosso High School in 1893 Frieseke studied painting at the Chicago Art Institute and the Art Students League in New York. In 1898, at the age of 24, he headed for Paris with $500 his father had given him. From then on, although he returned to the United States occasionally for shows or to meet with his agent, Frieseke became an expatriate – living, working, marrying and dying in France at the age of 65 in 1939.
During his lifetime Frieseke was an artist of renown who won many awards and exhibited his paintings often in Europe and the United States. In 1926, Frieseke donated a painting, Lady with the Sunshade, c.1910 to the City of Owosso. The painting is on long term loan to the Shiawassee Arts Center and is displayed in the Frieseke Gallery along with three other original paintings and many reproductions.
