Robert Freiman, Quai De La Tournelle, Paris Street Scene Oil Painting, American Deaf Modernist, 1953

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Paris street scene oil painting in original vintage hand carved frame, showing some wear. Signed l.r. and dated 1953. Inscribed … Read more Paris street scene oil painting in original vintage hand carved frame, showing some wear. Signed l.r. and dated 1953. Inscribed on reverse with title.
28.50 in. by 33.50 in. include frame. Unframed 19.75 in. by 24 in.
Robert Freiman, deaf from birth, was born in March 1917 in New York City. He attended an oral program near his home and later transferred to the Lexington School for the Deaf when he was six. Early in his childhood, his love for drawing, painting and studying became apparent, and as an adult, he continued his studies in New York at the National Academy of Design, Pratt Institute, the Art Students League and the Parsons School of Design. In Paris, France he studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Bob Freiman was especially focused on painting portraits and figures in motion in various mediums, especially the mixed-media combination of watercolor, acrylic and pen. Among his subjects were acrobats, ballet dancers, cyclists and other athletes. He as well focused on abstracts for a time, discovering new media in his works with quick brushwork and expressive movements.
In the latter part of his career, his style became abstract and surreal with images of metaphysical landscapes with architectural elements such as arches, towers, pyramids and castles floating in the air. The famed art critic Pierre Rouve wrote: “It is therefore refreshing to see them revitalized by the colourist wealth and virile handwriting of Robert Freiman, probably the best American water-colorist since John Marin. He worked in Provincetown and Nantucket and regularly exhibited there. He showed at Doll & Richards gallery of Boston alongside John Chetcuti, Lloyd Goodrich, Tod Lindenmuth, William Meyerowitz, Dwight Shepler, Elizabeth O'Neill Verner, Stanley Woodward, Andrew Wyeth, and others. His work bears the influence of the mid century school of Paris in particular Jean Carzou. He was a regular exhibitor at the Sidewalk Art Show in New York beginning in the 1930s. Later in his career, his paintings became abstract infused with metaphysical landscapes and elements of architectural fantasy.
Through the 1940"s Freiman had numerous exhibits at Doll & Richards, and beginning in mid1950s his paintings began showing in prestigious galleries in New York, Paris, London, and Zurich, and in many galleries across the U.S.A. including a memorable exhibition entitled "The Silent World of Robert Freiman: His Paintings and Portraits", held in 1977 at the Edward J. Brown and Associates Studio in NYC.
Robert Freiman’s paintings are in the collections of some of most notable world-wide’s “Who is Who” collectors of the age, like James Baldwin, Tennessee Williams, Georges Braque, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Anne Bancroft, Peter Ustinove, Dirk Bogard, Simone Signoret, C.P. Coulandris, Edward Sarnoff, Henry Ruhl, Lee V. Eastman.
In addition to the notable private collections, Freiman’s paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of the City of New York, the National Academy of Design, the New Britain Museum in Connecticut, the Museum of Santa Barbara in California, Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina, the Georgia Museum of Art, the Art Association of Newport, Rhode Island, Le Musee Municipal de Saint-Paul de Vence, France.
Source:

Gannon, Jack R. "Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America".
Maryland: National Association of the Deaf, 1981. Information submitted November 2004 by Lawrence M. Miller See less