Biography
Fredericks was born of Scandinavian heritage in Rock Island, Illinois on January 31, 1908. His family moved to Florida for a short time and then settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where he grew up. He graduated from the Cleveland School of Art in 1930 and journeyed abroad on a fellowship to study with Carl Milles (1875–1955) in Sweden. After some months he studied in other academies and private studios in Denmark, Germany, France, and Italy, and traveled extensively in Europe and North Africa.
In 1932, he was invited by Carl Milles to join the staffs of Cranbrook Academy of Art and Cranbrook and Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, teaching there until he enlisted in the armed forces in 1942. In 1945, Fredericks was honorably discharged from the Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel.
In 1936, Fredericks won a competition to create the Levi L. Barbour Memorial Fountain on Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan. This was to be the first of many public monuments created by Fredericks. After World War II, the sculptor worked continuously on his numerous commissions for fountains, memorials, free-standing sculptures, reliefs, and portraits in bronze and other materials. Many of his works have spiritual intensity, lighthearted humor and a warm and gentle humanist spirit like that found in Fredericks himself.
Fredericks was the recipient of many American and foreign awards and decorations for his artistic and humanitarian achievements. He exhibited his work nationally and internationally and many of his works are in national, civic, and private collections.
He resided in Birmingham, Michigan with his wife Rosalind Cooke until his death April 4, 1998. The couple had five children and eight grandchildren. He maintained studios at 4113 North Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak and on East Long Lake Road in Bloomfield Hills until his death. His estate donated the contents of both studios to the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum on the campus of Saginaw Valley State University in Saginaw, Michigan.
Read more about this topic: Marshall Fredericks
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Richard Holmes (b. 1945)