Frederick Warren Freer

Frederick Warren Freer (June 16, 1849 – March 7, 1908) was an American painter from Kennicott Grove, Illinois, who was especially known for his skill in portraying female subjects. The son of a physician, Freer studied art instead of medicine after going partially deaf when he was fourteen. After he graduated from high school in Chicago, Freer's family relocated to Munich, where Freer studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts under multiple well-known artists. He returned to Chicago in 1871 before travelling to San Luis Potosí, Munich, Paris, the Netherlands, and Italy; in 1880, he moved to New York City. During this time, he extensively exhibited his work across the United States, a practice he would continue for the rest of his career. He also married Margaret Cecilia Keenan, who frequently modelled for his works.

Freer's work started to attract attention near the end of the 1880s, particularly 1887's Lady in Black, and he received multiple awards for his work in the following years. He became particularly known for his ability to portray female subjects. In 1892, the Art Institute of Chicago employed him as an instructor, a role he performed for sixteen years. He died of a heart attack in 1908; his wife donated all of the works that he had left to the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, where many continue to be displayed.

Throughout his career, Freer demonstrated versatility, moving back and forth between a number of styles. Leaning on his education in Munich, he began by depicting well-lit subjects with dark clothing and surroundings; he later incorporated a wider range of colors in his work and even dabbled with Impressionist techniques. He also experimented with watercolor and etching in addition to traditional painting.

Frederick Warren Freer was born in Kennicott Grove, near Chicago, Illinois, on June 16, 1849. He was the oldest son of physician Joseph Warren Freer and Katherine Gatter Freer. Joseph Warren Freer served as the president of Rush Medical College from 1872 to 1877 and two of Freer's brothers, Paul and Otto, also studied there. Freer's sister Cora became an artist. Although Freer had planned to study medicine like his father, he went partially deaf due to an illness at age fourteen; accordingly, Freer instead began to study for a career in art, a decision supported by his parents.

Freer was schooled in Chicago, graduating from Central High School in 1867. His family then moved to Munich, where he and his sister Cora studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Among Freer's instructors at the academy were well-known painters Alexander Strähuber, Alexander von Wagner, and Wilhelm von Diez. While in Munich, some of Freer's paintings that he had sent to the United States appeared in the Chicago Academy of Design's exhibitions. He concluded his stay at the academy in 1871 and returned to Chicago, where his family home was destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire. Freer returned to study in Munich at some point between 1871 and 1874.

Freer's work was displayed at the 1873 Chicago Interstate Industrial Exposition, the first since the fire in 1871. He then left Chicago and went to San Luis Potosí, creating numerous paintings and drawings of the area and its inhabitants; these works, alongside some of those which he created while at the Royal Academy, featured in a Chicago Academy of Design exhibition in June 1875. In recognition of his talent, the Chicago Academy of Design designated him an academician.

In 1877, Freer traveled across Munich, Paris, the Netherlands, and Italy. While in Munich, he befriended fellow painter Frank Duveneck; on multiple occasions, the two portrayed each other, or painted the same subject together. In the summer of 1879, Freer stayed in Polling, Prussia, with Duveneck and Joseph Frank Currier, where he often painted the Bavarian landscape; this was followed by yearlong stay in Paris. In 1880, he briefly returned to Chicago and held an unsuccessful auction of his work before relocating to New York. There he became a member of clubs such as the Society of American Artists and began to exhibit his work with art societies and academies in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, among them the Society of American Artists, the National Academy of Design, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. During this time, he also developed an interest in alternate art media, like watercolor and etching, dedicating a large amount of time to the two crafts.

After returning from a trip to the Netherlands in 1883, Freer became an instructor at the Art Students League of New York, teaching drawing and painting alongside his associates Walter Shirlaw and William Merritt Chase. Around this time, well-known art collectors, including Thomas B. Clarke, began to acquire some of Freer's work. Freer married Margaret Cecilia Keenan, a painter and model, on his thirty-seventh birthday. The pair met after Keenan had modelled for Freer; he continued to depict her extensively throughout their marriage. With her, Freer had six children: Frederick Church, Arthur Warren, Paul Howard, Otto Emil, Catherine, and a sixth child who died in infancy.