William Fredericksen
(American, 1914-2010)

Colorful modernist mixed media of a vibrant port scene with boats, houses, docks, trees, and a figure sunbathing on the beach.
This is a mixed media of pen and ink, watercolor painting, and crayon drawing, created in 1948 by Bauhaus artist William Fredericksen.
William Fredericksen was born in Norway in 1914, and studied fine art there as a young man. In the 1940s, with war raging in Europe, Fredericksen immigrated to the United States where he settled in Chicago, a place where several important Bauhaus trained artists had chosen to continue their careers. Fredericksen studied at the American Academy of Art, the Art Institute, (Chicago), and the New Bauhaus, (later the Institute of Design), working directly under esteemed Bauhaus masters László Moholy-Nagy and Alexander Archipenko, as well as Gyorgy Kepes and Werner Drewes.
In 1948 Fredericksen left the New Bauhaus to enjoy a successful career as a commercial graphic designer, creating advertising for major American companies.
In 1958 Fredericksen moved to Massachusetts where he remained until his death in 2010.
William Fredericksen, a true American Bauhaus artist, created paintings, drawings, photograms and constructivist collages throughout his life. Although he did occasionally enter works in juried shows, and would sometimes exhibit at galleries like André Emmerich Gallery in New York, Fredericksen chose not to promote his work but rather seems to have elected to keep his work near to himself, to enjoy.
After his death in 2010 works by Fredericksen began to make their way onto the thriving modern art market.
This work, as well as several others in this auction, are early works by the artist dating from the 1940s and early 1950s when Fredericksen was living and working in the Chicago area.
Mixed media painting on paper and is signed lower right, and dates from 1948.

Mixed media painting on paper
1948


Measurements
14" x 11" sight size, and 19.25" x 15.75" x 1" overall including mat and framing


Notes
Signed and dated
Housed in a contemporary frame under UV plexiglass
Provenance: from a collection of the artist's works purchased at Brimfield, Mass antique market after the artist's death.


Condition