Douglass Freed: Mystical Light

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D OUGL A S S FREED

Mystical Light

bruno david gallery

Douglass Freed Mystical Light

October 31 - December 23, 2020 Bruno David Gallery 7513 Forsyth Boulevard Saint Louis, Missouri 63105, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Founder/Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition “Douglass Freed: Mystical Light” at Bruno David Gallery.

Editor: Bruno L. David Catalogue Designer: Nina Huang and Lily Hollinden Designer Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Douglass Freed and Bruno David Gallery Photographs by Bruno David Gallery Cover image: Approaching Darkness, (detail) 2020 Oil on canvas, 34 x 46 inches (86.4 x 116.8 cm) First Edition Copyright ©2021 Douglass Freed and Bruno David Gallery All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery

CONTENTS

THE PAINTINGS OF DOUG FREED: ENVISIONING AMBIGUITY AND ATMOSPHERE

BY JOAN STACK AFTERWORD

BY BRUNO L. DAVID CHECKLIST AND IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION BIOGRAPHY

THE PAINTINGS OF DOUG FREED: ENVISIONING AMBIGUITY AND ATMOSPHERE

BY JOAN STACK Its a muggy July day, and I am heading South on Highway 60 towards Sedalia, the home of the Missouri State Fair.

I am on my way to the historic district of the old railway town to visit the studio of Doug Freed, a Missouri painter represented in galleries across the state and nation.

Many Missouri art lovers know Doug as the former director of the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art in Sedalia.

Doug helped found this extraordinary museum, where visitors may be surprised to find world-class works by artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Richard Diebenkorn and Robert Motherwell. Doug was a close friend of the museum’s namesake, Dr. Harold S. Daum, who had amassed an impressive art collection over the course of many years. Daum asked Doug to help plan a museum founded on this collection, and the artist oversaw its development from 1999 until its opening in 2002. He continued as the museum’s director until 2008, enhancing the collection with funds provided by Daum for that purpose. The Daum is now considered one of the premier museums dedicated to contemporary art in the Midwest.

I am tempted to make a stop at the Daum on my way into Sedalia, but I decide to go straight to Freed’s studio. I am eager to talk to Doug face-to-face about his long history in the national art scene and his experiences both as a color-field painter in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, and as a creator of atmospheric landscapes in more recent years.

Doug’s studio is in an historic building on Sedalia’s East Main Street, with a beautiful old storefront. I look through the antique windows to see his spectacular large canvases lining the walls. Doug greets me with a smile and welcomes me into his studio, which he shares with his son, the respected painter and author, Damon Freed. Eager to show me around, Doug points out recent art works hanging near the windows before taking me to the back to see his work area.

Here I see the computers, shelves, and papers one would expect to find in a typical business office, but many of the walls are covered in plastic sheeting. I see traces of paint from the artist’s most recent art works on some of this sheeting and mention this to Doug. The artist laughs and tells me that the colors on the plastic serve to document

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his studio history, reminding him of the last few pictures he has made in various locations. He explains that he changes the plastic when it becomes too covered in paint. I also see photographs affixed to the plastic in some areas. Doug points out that these represent recent paintings and ideas for future paintings. He adds that he likes to think about his creative past and future as he works in the present.

Doug’s work has changed dramatically over the course of his fifty-plus-year career. He first came to my attention when I was an art history student at Mizzou in the 1980s, where I saw his work at the University’s Museum of Art and Archaeology. At that time Doug was working in a non-representational style, creating multi- panel artworks that consisted of several canvases, each covered in beautiful tonal layers of color. I ask him what attracted him to the idea of creating artworks made up of multiple related panels, and he tells me he has always been interested in the visual relationships of painted triptychs and polyptychs of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. He also liked the sculptural quality of multipaneled artworks, and the way their spatial relationships encouraged viewers to compare and contrast their visual qualities.

Doug’s color field paintings made a splash nationally, and he was represented by Vorpal Gallery in New York City throughout the 1980s and 1990s. I am disappointed that he does not have any paintings from this period currently in the studio, but Doug takes me out to a small patio at the back where two beautiful multi-panel sculptures in metal are displayed. I instantly recognize the “Freed style” of multiple rectilinear forms arranged in interesting patterns, and we discuss how the natural corrosion of the material mimics some of the tonal qualities of his paintings.

Back inside, I ask Doug about his decision in the early 2000s to begin adding representational elements to his work.

Many of his newer images are still multipaneled constructions, and fields of color remain an important element in all these paintings. Doug tells me that as he was working on non-objective paintings at the dawn of the twenty-first century, when he began to see landscape elements in the compositions. He was drawn to the way these elements resonated with him, and he felt compelled to more fully explore the creative possibilities of working abstractly from nature.

The walls of the studio are covered with canvases depicting hazy vistas with open skies, woods shrouded in mist, and seascapes in which water and sky are separated only by a narrow horizon line. I notice that there are no traces of human activity in most of these images, and I ask Doug if he feels that the paintings have an environmental

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message. He tells me that he does not put any conscious messages into his artworks, but he welcomes such associations. For him the images of land, sea, and sky have an intrinsic power.

I see an affinity between the universal purity of color, shape and form in Doug’s early work, and the tonal landscapes that represent the essential elements of nature. Doug tells me that he has always been interested in the idea of “the void” or empty space, and many of his non-representational works had an atmospheric quality that some might compare to subtle shadows on a wall, or a sky illuminated by fading light. This interest in representing light and color in a material void continues to be an important element in Doug’s abstract landscapes.

My attention turns to Doug’s worktable which stands against the wall. Everything is neatly arranged, and I marvel at the dozens of brushes inside a container on the table. I ask Doug about the materials he uses, and I am surprised to learn that he does not use a traditional artist’s palette. Instead, he prefers to use paper palettes, which can be ordered from art supply stores. These palettes resemble sketch books on which the artist mixes colors on the surface of specially treated white paper. When the surface is covered, he tears off the sheet, discards it, and begins working on the next page. This method provides the artist with a “blank slate” each time the palette is changed.

Doug has changed his method of applying paint over the years. When he was working on his non-objective paintings, he sprayed multiple translucent layers of color on top of one another to achieve subtle transitions of hue on the smooth surfaces of his canvases. He didn’t share the interest of some non-representational painters in emphasizing the process of painting with obvious brush strokes and paint marks. Doug preferred to de-emphasize the mark-making process, and he found that spraying the paint onto his canvases effectively created the desired smooth and even surface.

Today, the artist uses a different method to minimize the evidence of his mark making. He begins his landscape paintings in the traditional way, applying brushstrokes to the canvas to create an image. Sometimes he uses a scaffold to paint his large canvases, which can be over eight feet high. Once he has completed the picture, he takes a broad brush and sweeps it horizontally across the canvas, repeating this process until the entire image has been “brushed.” The brushing of the paint blurs the tonal contours between forms and creates a smooth and even surface for the entire painting. I find the process fascinating, in part because it ties Doug’s current work to the pristine canvases of his non-objective period, and because the act of brushing over the image reminds me of the way the mind “brushes over” lived experiences, remembering them in a somewhat “blurry” manner.

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I notice that Doug prefers to exhibit his works without frames. He even signs the pictures on their outside edge, scratching his name into the wet paint. I see numerous paintings signed in this way on the studio’s painting racks.

When displayed as intended, neither frame nor signature distracts from the formal beauty of the paintings. Doug shares his official artist statement with me, which includes words that help elucidate his minimalist approach, “I do not want anything to distract from the illusion of depth,” he writes, “The compositions are about ambiguities of form and void, foreground and background, and surface and deep space.”

The artist has also written that he seeks to create images that inspire contemplation and explore the “ambiguities of physical and spiritual experiences of light . . . color and form.” When I finally say goodbye to the artist on this late July afternoon, I realize I have a long drive ahead of me. I get in the car and drive north towards a stormy Missouri sky. As I am confronted with a “Freed-like” chromatic void, I think about Doug’s paintings, and look forward to seeing more of his work in the future.

Dr. Joan Stack is the Curator of Art Collections at the State Historical Society of Missouri. Her essay is scheduled to also be published in the October 2021. Missouri Life Magazine Issue. This text is one in a series of the gallery’s exhibitions written by fellow gallery artists and friends.

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Douglass Freed, “Spiritual Light”

“Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole. […] Thus in our fine arts, not imitation, but creation is the aim. In landscapes, the painter should give the suggestion of a fairer creation than we know. The details, the prose of nature he should omit, and give us only the spirit and splendor. […] and he will come to value the expression of nature, and not nature itself, and so exalt in his copy, the features that please him. He will give the gloom of gloom, and the sunshine of sunshine.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essay, Art, (1841)

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AFTERWORD

BY BRUNO L. DAVID

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I am pleased to present Mystical Light, an exhibition by Douglass Freed. This is Freed’s third exhibition with the gallery.

For nearly twenty years, Douglass Freed made non-objective grid structured paintings. He started to see references to the landscape in these works. He literalized those references by painting oil landscape vistas of horizons, clouds, and bodies of water. He currently paints luminescent oil paintings where he finds the grey area between traditional landscape painting and its abstraction into color fields. He tries to capture the mystical light found in natural atmospheric effects: the haze in the distance on humid summer days, the overcast gloom of winter skies, and the softness of landscape bathed in fog, and the quieting mood of approaching darkness. Freed intends to create paintings imbued with a meditative, spiritual presence suggestive of time and ecology. He does this by softly modulating color, tone, and value. The color varies from quiet and monochromatic, to fully orchestrated and chromatic. By blending from one hue to another he creates color which makes itself gradually felt, weeping forth. In this manner, he creates illusions of mysterious emanations of light, places where one’s eyes and spirit are invited to linger Douglass tries to imbue his work with a significant presence, epic in both size and scope. He does this by orchestrating the separate elements of color, texture, and structure into a harmonious whole. Douglass says: “I seek a somewhat reductive image rich in value and contrast. I do not want anything to distract from the illusion of depth. The compositions are about ambiguities of form and void, foreground and background, and surface and deep space. My roots lie in tonalism, color field painting, and minimalism. However, my work contains an ever-present awareness of the dramatic use of light of the post-Renaissance chiaroscurists. It combines a classical awareness of structure with a romantic use of color always in combination with a unique sense of ambiguity.”

Douglass Freed was born in Garden City, Kansas (1944). He had over 80 solo exhibitions, and his work is in 20 museum collections and over 40 corporate collections. He lives and works in Sedalia, Missouri.

Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding in 2005. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Joan Stack for her thoughtful essay. I am deeply grateful to Nina Huang and Lily Hollinden, who gave much time, talent, and expertise to the production of this catalogue. Invaluable gallery staff support for the exhibition was provided by Lily Holllinden, Jordan Lee, Grace Ray, and Nina Huang.

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CHECKLIST & IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION

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Green Field Sunset 2015 Oil on canvas 48 x 60 inches 121.9 × 152.4 cm

Winter Ethereal 2016 Oil on canvas 48 x 72 inches 121.9 × 182.9 cm

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Summer Light 2016 Oil on canvas 18 x 36 inches 45.7 × 91.4 cm

Lake Sunset #15 2020 Oil on canvas 34 x 46 inches 86.4 × 116.8 cm

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Cloud Scape Sunset #3 2020 Oil on canvas 32 x 24 inches 81.3 × 61 cm

Valley Fog 2017 Oil on canvas 48 x 72 inches 121.9 × 182.9 cmS

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Lake Sunset #14 2020 Oil on canvas 34 x 46 inches 86.4 × 116.8 cm

Storm - Breaking 2019 Oil on canvas 48 x 54 inches 121.9 × 137.2 cm

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Spring Ethereal 2016 Oil on canvas 48 x 72 inches 121.9 × 182.9 cm

Lake Sunset #5 2019 Oil on canvas 54 x 48 inches 137.2 × 121.9 cm

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Summer Valley Fog 2017 Oil on canvas 32 x 24 inches 81.3 × 61 cm

Approaching Darkness 2020 Oil on canvas 34 x 46 inches 86.4 × 116.8 cm

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Bottoms, Morning Sunrise 2017 Oil on canvas 48 x 72 inches 121.9 × 182.9 cm

Evening Fog 2017 Oil on canvas 32 x 24 inches 81.3 × 61 cm

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Halcyon 2010 Oil on canvas 68 x 96 inches 172.72 × 243.84 cm

Fall Ethereal 2016 Oil on canvas 48 x 54 inches 121.9 × 137.2 cm

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Winter Ethereal 2016 Oil on canvas 48 x 72 inches 121.9 × 182.9 cm

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Douglass Freed: Mystical Light. Installation view 34

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Douglass Freed: Mystical Light. Installation view 36

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Douglass Freed: Mystical Light. Installation view 38

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DOUGLASS FREED EDUCATION 1967 1968

BFA, Fort Hays, Kansas State University MA, Fort Hays, Kansas State University

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2020 2018 2017

2016 2015 2013

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2011 2009

2008 2007

Mystical Light, Bruno David Gallery, St Louis Mo (catalogue) Lake Sunsets, Mary Martin Fine Art, Charleston SC Winter Light, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO (catalogue) Reflections…Noitcelfer, Bruno David Gallery, St Louis Mo (catalogue)

Douglass Freed, Reflections, Haden Liberty Center for the Arts, Sedalia, MO Ocean Paintings, Etra Fine Art, Miami, FL Night Fall-Morning Rise, Mary Martin Fine Art, Charleston, SC Reflective Landscapes, Bruno David Gallery, St Louis, Mo (catalogue) Doug Freed, Aberson Exhibits, Tulsa, OK Doug Freed, Large Paintings, Etra Fine Art, Miami, FL Douglass Freed, Paintings, Mary Martin Fine Art, Charleston, SC Light Sequent, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO Douglass Freed, Paintings, 1973-2010, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art Retrospective Exhibition, Sedalia, MO (catalogue) Douglass Freed, Anne Loucks Gallery, Chicago, IL Dean Day Gallery, Houston, TX Light, Color, Atmosphere, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO Douglass Freed, Anne Loucks Gallery, Glencoe, IL Dreamscapes, Micaela Gallery, San Francisco, CA Large Canvases, Etra Fine Art, Miami, FL

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Douglass Freed, Anne Loucks Gallery, Glencoe, IL Dreamscapes, Mary Martin Fine Art, Charleston, SC Spoleto Arts Festival, Mary Martin Fine Art, Charleston, SC Revisited Landscape, Etra Fine Art, Miami, FL Time Passages, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO Douglass Freed, Paintings, Lanoue Fine Art, Boston, MA Basil Miami, Patrona Frau/Etra Fine Arts, Miami, FL Douglass Freed Paintings, R Duane Reed, Ft Lauderdale, FL New work, Olsen-Larsen Galleries, West Des Moines, IA Douglass Freed Paintings, R. Duane Reed Gallery, St. Louis, MO Douglass Freed, Steinway Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC Works on Canvas and Paper, Walnut Street Gallery, Springfield, MO Douglass Freed, Northwest Missouri State University, Maryville, MO Douglass Freed, Vorpal Gallery, San Francisco, CA Douglass Freed, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO

Monumental Landscapes, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO Douglass Freed Monumental Landscapes, Wichita Center for the Arts, Wichita, KS Douglass Freed, Oils on Paper, Steinway Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC Douglass Freed, New Paintings, M.A. Doran Gallery, Tulsa, OK Landscapes, Steinway Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC Sky/Land/Water, Leedy Voulkos Gallery, Kansas City, MO Horizons and Vistas, Walnut Street Gallery, Springfield, MO Steel Wall Structures, Vorpal Gallery, New York, NY Oil on Canvas Structures, Vorpal Gallery, San Francisco, CA Monumental Structures and Landscapes, Goddard Gallery, Stauffacher Center for the Fine Arts, Sedalia, MO Oil Paintings, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO New Steel Sculptures, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO Herr-Chambliss Fine Arts, Hot Springs National Park, Hot Springs, AK Leedy Voulkos Art Center, Kansas City, MO New Steel Wall Structures, Vorpal Gallery, New York, NY

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Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO Douglass Freed, Recent Paintings, University of Missouri, Museum of Art and Archaeology, Columbia, MO Art for Life, Works on Paper, University Hospital, Columbia, MO Vorpal Gallery, San Francisco, CA Acrylic on Paper Works, Lincoln College, Lincoln, IL Vorpal Gallery, New York, NY State Fair Community College, Sedalia, MO Elliot Smith Gallery, St. Louis, MO Vorpal Gallery, New York, NY St. Louis Design Center, arranged by Greenberg Gallery, St. Louis, MO Doug Freed, Summer Invitational, Zolla /Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL Batz/Lawrence Gallery, Kansas City, MO Greenberg Gallery, St. Louis, MO Emporia State University, Norman R. Eppink Art Gallery, Emporia, KS Vorpal Gallery, New York, NY Batz Gallery, Kansas City, MO Vorpal Gallery, New York, NY Vorpal Gallery, San Francisco, CA University of Missouri Kansas City, Kemper Gallery, Kansas City, MO Vorpal Gallery, Mini-Exhibit, Gallery 2, New York, NY Vorpal Gallery, New York, NY Art Research Center, Kansas City, MO Vorpal Gallery, New York, NY Columbia Art League, Columbia, MO 7th East 7th Gallery, Lawrence, KS Johnson County Community College, Kansas City, KS Park Central Gallery, Springfield, MO Angerer Gallery, Kansas City, MO

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SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO Emporia State University, Norman R. Eppink Art Gallery, Emporia, KS Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS Hutchinson Community College, Hutchinson, KS Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS Kansas State University, College of Architecture and Design, Manhattan, KS Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO Lincoln College, Lincoln, IL Newark Museum, Newark, NJ St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO State Fair Community College, Sedalia, MO The State Historical Society of Missouri

University of Missouri, Museum of Art and Archaeology, Columbia, MO University of Missouri, Memorial Union Collection, Columbia, MO Washington University, Steinberg Collection, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, MO Wichita Center for the Arts, Wichita, KS

SELECTED COMMISSSIONS Deloitte & Touche, St. Louis, MO Emerson Electric, St. Louis, MO Federal Reserve Bank, Kansas City, MO Fort Smith Public Library, Fort Smith, AK Fresenius Medical Care North America, Waltham, MA Hilton Hotel, San Francisco, CA Hoechst Marion Roussel, Kansas City, MO

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KEO Building Corporation, Sedalia, MO Publishing Enterprises, Inc., Sedalia, MO Ritz Carlton Hotel, Laguna, CA Ritz Carlton Hotel, Grand Lakes, Orlando, Fl Sachs Properties, St. Louis, MO Septagon Industries, Sedalia, MO

SELECTED CORPORATE COLLECTIONS American Century Mutual Funds, Kansas City, MO American Family Doctors, National Headquarters, Kansas City, MO Bank of Olathe, Olathe, KS Barnes Jewish Hospital, St Louis, MO Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Missouri, St. Louis, MO Boone County Bank, Columbia, MO Cessna Aircraft Corporation, Wichita, KS City of Komoro, Komoro, Japan Crown Center, Hallmark Art Collection, Kansas City, MO DST Corporation, Kansas City, MO D & W Leasing, Sedalia, MO Emprise Bank, Wichita, KS 1st National Bank, Rockford, IL FBL Financial Group, West Des Moines, IA H&R Block Inc. Corporation, Kansas City, MO Hallmark Cards Inc., Kansas City, MO Hewlett Packard Corporation, St. Louis, MO Insituform Mid-America, Inc., St. Louis, MO Landmark Bank, Madill, OK McGraw Hill Publishing Co., New York, NY Mark Twain Bank, Creve Coeur, MO

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Mark Twain Bank Shares, Ladue, MO Maytag, Newton, IA Municipal Collection, Jászberény, Hungary Parks & Recreation Department, Columbia, MO Pella Corporation, Pella, IA Pioneer Hybrid, Des Moines, IA Southern Progress, Birmingham, AL Sprint Corporation, Kansas City, MO Stillwater National Bank, Tulsa, OK United Telephone Systems, Inc., Kansas City, MO University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, MO University of Kansas School of Medicine, Wichita, KS Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO Truman Medical Center, Kansas City, MO

AWARDS, GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND APPOINTMENTS 2019 2013 2007

2005 2003 1993 1992

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Douglass Freed Presented with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award by Marquis Who’s Who Chairman Arts and Humanities Committee Mid-America Arts Alliance Board Mid-America Arts Alliance Board Missouri Arts Award for Leadership in the Arts Missouri Senate Proclamation, recognizing that Douglass Freed has attained considerable distinction as a painter, educator, and museum director Missouri House of Representatives Resolution, recognizing Douglass Freed for his profound contribution to the arts Star Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts, Liberty Center Association for the Arts Art in Embassy Program, American Embassy, Dakar, Senegal Site Specific Sculpture Installation Grant, Office of Cultural Affairs, Columbia, MO Visiting Artist, Fine Arts Building, Missouri State Fair, Sedalia, MO

1990 1987 1984 1981

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Creative Artist Project Grant, Missouri Arts Council Design Arts Special Project Grant, National Endowment for the Arts Missouri Arts Council Board, Gubernatorial Appointment Missouri Advocates for the Arts, board member; through 1984 Visual Arts Professional Advisory Committee, Missouri Council on the Arts; through 1983 Visual Artist Grant, Mid-America Arts Alliance, The National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Residency Grant, Missouri State Council on the Arts Rotary International Fellowship Group Study Exchange to Italy

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ARTISTS Sara Ghazi Asadollahi Laura Beard Heather Bennett Lisa K. Blatt Michael Byron Bunny Burson Judy Child Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Terry James Conrad Jill Downen Damon Freed

Yvette Drury Dubinsky Douglass Freed Richard Hull Kelley Johnson Chris Kahler Leslie Laskey Justin Henry Miller James Austin Murray Yvonne Osei Patricia Olynyk Gary Passanise

Charles P. Reay Daniel Raedeke Tom Reed Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Buzz Spector Mark Travers Monika Wulfers

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