Robert Freimark, 70’s Large Colorful Abstract Expressionist Art Protis Tapestry Wool Wall Hanging, 1974

Art Protis Wall Tapestry

Robert Freimark (1922 – 2010)
Bob Freimark was active/lived in Ohio, California, Michigan. Robert Freimark is known for abstract expressionist painting, figurative-Mexico, teaching.
Subject matter for which known: “I am an abstract-expressionist, but I am committed to the belief that all artists must thoroughly know and pursue the figure and the figurative genre, in the same sense that a pianist regularly practices the scale.”

Freimark attended art classes at the Toledo Museum of Art. At that time the Toledo Museum of Art was the third most significant museum in the U.S. He was deeply involved in sports, particularly boxing and football. He won the Diamond Belt Tournament in Detroit and got to meet Joe Louis and Jack Dempsey. After the war Freimark attended the University of Toledo, and studied with Hal Lotterman and Harvey Littleton, plus an excellent faculty at the Toledo Museum of Art. He went on to gain a Masters in Fine Arts at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he was tutored by Eliel Saarinen in architecture and Carl Milles in sculpture. Following Cranbrook, he returned to Toledo, where he lived near Israel Abramofsky, who had been one of the expatriates in Paris during the blooming of Modern art. Later he studied with Max Weber, from that same period.

His suite of serigraphs, “Fifty States,” toured Europe in 1970-71 and includes one example of each of the U.S. fifty states. His outdoor painting classes led him to set up the Artist in Residence program for the National Parks, which he initiated at Yosemite in 1984. Freimarks travels abroad introduced him to Art Protis, the tapestry technique perfected in Communist Czechoslovakia, where I worked seasonally for 25 years, immersed in a technique that was very related to painting. Film-making occupied a good deal of his time at the turn of the century. In 2005 he had completed “El Dia Tarasco” in Mexico, “Arte Cubano” in Cuba, “Los Desaparecidos” in Argentina, and “Royal Chicano Air Force” in California. Known for Contemporary Art, 20th Century Art, Abstract Landscape, Tapestry and Wall Hanging, Painting, Textile Arts, Political art.
“I consider myself a painter. But to be a painter, you have to under-stand line, and drawing. Drawing leads directly into print-making. And finally there is sculpture, and architecture, to house the art.” “I was motivated by the people before me, Matisse and Cezanne particularly, and eventually Willem De Kooning. I understood from those early masters that it is the province and discipline of an artist to utilize whatever media he confronts, or whatever exists around him, and particularly the media most pertinent to the subject at hand.”

ONE-PERSON EXHIBITIONS:
Rockefeller Center (sponsor: Prang Crayon Co.), 1954
Des Moines Art Center, 1959
Minneapolis Institute of Art, 1960
North American Cultural Institute, Mexico City, 1963
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA, 1965
Exhibition “Fifty States” toured Europe: Moravske Museum, Brno, Czechoslovakia; International People’s College, Helsinger, Denmark; Galerie Alliance, Copenhagen; vaerksted fur Grafisk Kunst, Hjorring, Denmark; Newton Abbot School of Art, Ikon Gallery, Dartington Hall in Totnes, Centre for American Studies at Exeter University Ball in England, Schiller College, Bonnigheim, Germany.
“Fifty States”, official U.S. Bicentennial offering, in Amerika Hausen, Germany.
Visitor’s Center, Yosemite National Park, 1985
Joslyn Center for Arts, Torrance, CA, 1987
Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA, 1990
Stara Radnice, Brno and Strahov Kloster, National Palace, Prague, 1990
Galerie Katinae (Studio of Corot), St. Ceneri le Gerei, France, 1992
Art Expo, NYC, 2000
Dakar Biennale, Senegal, 2002

GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
“Drawings of 12 Countries,” Chicago Art Institute, 1952
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Lambert Fund Prize, 1952
Brooklyn Print Biennial, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Purchase Award, 1960
International Watercolor Biennial, Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1963
Olympic Games, Moscow, American representative, 1980
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, “Enrichments of the Print Cabinet,” 1989
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, “Screen Prints 1930s-1960s”, 1991
Hotel Cosima, Tokyo, Japan, Installation: Tapestry and Paintings, 1994
Graphic Arts International, Portland Art Museum, OR, Purchase Award, 1997
Japan Contemporary Arts and Crafts, Tokyo Museum, Invited, 1995
National Works on Paper, University of Hawaii, Hilo, 1996
International Print Triennial, Krakow, Poland, 1997-98
Boston Print Symposium, Harvard and Boston Museum, Invited, 1997
Museum of Arts Downtown Los Angeles, 1997
Honolulu Academy of Fine Arts, “Lithography After 200 Years,” 1998
Mini-Print International, Cadaques, Spain, circulating 1 year, 2002
Egyptian International Print Triennial, Cairo, 2003
Dahlonega International Film Festival, Atlanta, Freedom Award, 2003
Hungarian Multi-Cultural Exhibition, Vizivaros Gallery, Budapest, 2004

PERMANENT COLLECTIONS

Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, MA
British Museum, London
Cranbrook Museum of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Florean Museum, Carbunari, Romania
Fogg Museum, Cambridge, MA
Gilkey Center for Graphic Arts, Portland, OR (complete prints over 600)
Kyoto International Woodprint Association, Japan
Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Los Angeles County Art Institute, CA
Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Panama City, Panama
Museo Emilio Bacardi, Santiago de Cuba
Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, San Jose, CR
Museo Nacional de Cuba, La Habana, Cuba
Museum of the International Triennial of Graphic Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria
National Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
National Museum of American History (over 100 works) Washington, DC
Seattle Art Museum, WA
National Museum of Fine Arts, Cairo, Egypt
Museo Guayasamin, Quito, Ecuador

Select bibliography:
MOSAIC ART TODAY, Larry Argiro, 1961. International Textbooks Company
SERIGRAPHY, Kenneth W. Auvil, 1965. Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965.
GRAPHIC DESIGN AND VISUAL COMMUNICATION, John W. Cataldo, 1966.
WATERCOLOR PAINTING, Yar G. Chomicky, 1968. Prentice-Hall, Inc.
THE RUG BOOK, Lillian Quirke, Prentice-Hall, 1979.
BEYOND WEAVING, Chamberlain and Crockett, 1974. Watson-Guptill Publ.
CALIFORNIA ARTISTS COOKBOOK, Blank and Seymour, 1982. Abbeville Press
WINE AUCTION, San Jose Museum of Art, 1985. 45pp. Illus. pg. 15.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIVING ARTISTS IN AMERICA, Constance Franklin,
EROTIC ART BY LIVING ARTISTS, Constance Franklin, 1988. Directors Guild.
VITREOGRAPH LITTLETON STUDIOS, Kala Institute, Berkeley, CA, Mar., 1994.
BOHUMIL VRZAL, Point Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic, 2000. 204 pp., color.

Art Protis was artistically developed by famous Czech artists Jiří Trnka and Antonín Kybal, Non woven tapestries by first preparing wool which comes in raw sheets dyed in different colors. The prepared wool is then cut to pieces and placed on top of one another like a collage. The finished layers were then pressed through a machine and stitched together on to a canvas. Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, French artist James Coignard, American Robert Freimark and Australian Erroll B. Davis Amongst many others.