Freda Koblick Acrylic Sculpture
This gorgeous original Freda Koblick acrylic sculpture by San Francisco artist Freda Koblick depicts a mesmerizing rolling ocean wave.
Description of Freda Koblick Acrylic Sculpture
It is titled ‘North Sea Wave’. I have an additional ‘North Sea Wave’ sculpture but this piece has many bubbles, depicting an active sea. Neither sculpture is signed but both sculptures are from a close friend who managed Freda’s estate during and after she died.
Measurements: 21″ x 16 x 8″
Approximate Weight: 5.5 lbs
Freda Koblick Acrylic Sculpture
About Freda Koblick
Freda Koblick (1910-2011), a San Francisco artist and designer, was known for introducing cast acrylic as a medium for sculpture. The San Francisco artist studied English and engineering at San Francisco State College in the late 1930s. She became interested in making art from what were then new materials, particularly plastics, which, as she told the San Francisco Chronicle a few years ago, appealed to her “fascination with transparency.”
In 1939, Freda moved to Los Angeles where she enrolled at the Plastics Industries Technical Institute. During the war in the 1940s, she returned to San Francisco and made a living by producing small decorative items. Architects eventually commissioned her to make larger pieces such as fountains and wall sculptures and it was from this career point she delved into fine art.
In later life Koblick set up home in a 4,300-foot loft in the Mission District, carved from a former synagogue built in 1908. Her maternal grandfather, Zusya Faverman, was a member of the building committee and her uncles were bar-mitzvahed there before she was born. The ceilings were 20 feet high, the floor planks a honey-colored pine and the pair of arched windows, each topped by a Star of David, brought showers of southern light downstairs, in what used to be the synagogue’s social hall.
Koblick had a ventilated studio workshop where she constructed her elegant, abstract acrylic sculptures. Allan Temko, the late Chronicle critic, praised for their “mythic grandeur” and “lyrical grace.”Even as a child,” she told the paper, “I had a kind of fascination with transparency. The fact that you could see through it and then if the light came against it, you couldn’t see through it and it broke into color.”
Freda Koblick’s Work
The Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York exhibited her work in 1968, and a prestigious fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation followed in 1970. Ms. Koblick’s most noticed work was undoubtedly a large hanging piece in cast acrylic commissioned in the early 1980s for the United Airlines terminal at San Francisco Int’l Airport.
In 1985, the California Creative Arts League named Ms. Koblick a “Living Treasure,” one of only 19 people then honored with the title. After many years as a denizen of the North Beach art scene, Ms. Koblick passed away at the age of 90.
Note
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