Barnett Freedman - Biography

Biography

Barnett Freedman was born in the east end of London on 19 May 1901, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia. Freedman's only formal education was at an elementary school, and from the age of nine he spent much time in hospital. This period was filled with wide reading and learning how to draw. He also learned to play the violin. At the age of fifteen, he obtained work as an office boy, then turning to draughtsmanship, initially with a monumental mason and subsequently at an architect's office. A strong interest in letterforms grew out his everyday work that was later to stand him in good stead. He wsas assiduous in attending evening classes at St. Martin's School of Art, hoping to win a London County Council scholarship. Although Freedman was initially unsuccessful, William Rothenstein, Principal of the Royal College of Art, was impressed by his potential and used his influence to enable Freedman to be admitted to the College. After leaving the College in 1925, Freedman tried to earn his living as a painter.

He married a fellow student, Beatrice Claudia Guercio; and, after hard times, gained an introduction to the publishers, Faber and Gwyer, for whom he illustrated Laurence Binyon's Wonder Night, in the Ariel Poems series. Barnett illustrated two further titles, Walter de la Mare’s News, and Roy Campbell’s Choosing a Mast, while Claudia did sketches for de la Mare’s poem, A Snowdrop. Barnett went on to design book jackets for the firm over a twentyfive-year period. Nearly all were auto-lithographed on stone with hand-drawn lettering. During this period, he carried out a wide range of work for other publishers and worked extensively also on package design.

Faber gave him his first major commission, an assignment to design and illustrate Siegfried Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. Published in 1931, the book was the subject of controversial reviews but brought him into prominence. Freedman had by that time become interested in the difficult medium of auto-lithography, where the artist draws his own designs on to the stones without the intervention of trade craftsmen or photomechanical means. He had received advice from T. E. Griffits, the most influential lithographer of the time, who held sway at Vincent Brooks, Day & Son.

Following work on an annual report for the Post Office, Freedman was chosen to design the 1935 postage stamp issues to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V. The distinctive and handsome nature of his work in this field brought him to wide public notice. By this time, Freedman was recognised as a force in autolithographic printmaking, and his down-to-earth attitude and lack of pretension made him welcome among the craftsmen at the Curwen Press, the Baynard Press and Chromoworks, the leading firms in the industry.

In 1936 he illustrated George Borrow's Lavengro for the Limited Editions Club of New York. By this time Freedman’s lithography had entered a new phase, where the unique qualities of the medium were taken into a new dimension with the artist’s rainbow palette. Freedman developed a technique whereby the black and white illustrations printed by line block simulated lithography, bringing a unity to the book. Although Lavengro was poorly subscribed, George Macy, owner of the book club, admired Freedman's work to such an extent that he was subsequently commissioned to illustrate Henry IV Part One, for the Limited Editions Club multi-volume Shakespeare. Tolstoy'sWar and Peace (1938) and Anna Karenina (1951) are recognised as two of the finest examples of twentieth century book design and have ensured Freedman an honoured place in the history of book production. For Macy's less exclusive Heritage Press, Freedman illustrated Dickens's Oliver Twist (1939), Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1941) and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1942). The Bronte novels are challenging for the illustrator, and Freedman’s interpretations were regarded as among the best.

Freedman was also employed by Ealing Films to design its 'logo' and provide the publicity for feature films such as Johnny Frenchman and San Demetrio, London. A constant stream of commercial design work provided him with a good living.

At the outbreak of the Second World War Freedman was appointed official war artist, an experience that he found to be both exasperating and amusing.

In post-war years, as a teacher at the Royal College of Art and the Ruskin School of Art, he was regarded by many of his students as an inspiring, if unpredictable, mentor who had little regard for time-wasters.

The inimitable style of Freedman's book jackets drew the eye of the ‘bookshop prowlers’, as they were termed by Maurice Collis, an author who realised and admired the important role that Freedman’s art played in bookshop sales. Freedman produced a stream of colourful posters and black-and-white drawings for press advertisements. At Chromoworks he had total oversight of the production of the Lyons lithographs, a series of fine colour prints by British artists, which were displayed in the teashops of J. Lyons and Co., now regarded as a major achievement in bringing good art to 'the masses'.

In 1946 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), and in 1949, Royal Designer for Industry. Unlike many of his contemporaries, who lived and worked into old age, Freedman's precarious health led to an early death, at work in his studio on 4 Jan 1958.