Barnett Freedman | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1901-05-19)19 May 1901 Stepney, London |
| Died | 4 January 1958(1958-01-04) (aged 56) Cornwall Gardens, off Gloucester Road, London |
| Education | |
| Known for | Lithography,typography,illustration |
Barnett FreedmanCBE RDI (19 May 1901 – 4 January 1958) was a British painter, commercial designer, book illustrator,typographer, andlithographer.[1][2]
Barnett Freedman was born inStepney, in the east end of London, the son of Louis Freedman, ajourneyman tailor, and Reiza Ruk,[3] Jewish immigrants from Russia. Freedman's only formal education was at an elementary school, and from the age of nine to 13 he was a bedridden patient in the London Hospital.[4] There he learnt to read and write and was taught to play the violin.[4] 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. Freedman's strong interest inletterforms grew out of this everyday work. He attended evening classes atSaint Martin's School of Art, hoping to win aLondon County Council scholarship. Although Freedman was initially unsuccessful,William Rothenstein, Principal of theRoyal College of Art, was impressed by his potential and used his influence to enable Freedman to be admitted to the College.[5][4]
After leaving the Royal College of Art 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 illustratedLaurence Binyon'sWonder Night, in theAriel Poems series. Barnett illustrated two further titles,Walter de la Mare'sNews and "Behold This Dreamer", andRoy Campbell'sChoosing a Mast, while Guercio did sketches for de la Mare's poem,A Snowdrop. Barnett designed book jackets for the firm for twenty-five years. 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.[6] Freedman's first solo exhibition was in 1927 at the Bloomsbury Bookshop in central London.[7]
Faber gave Freedman his first major commission, an assignment to design and illustrateSiegfried Sassoon'sMemoirs of an Infantry Officer.[6] Published in 1931, the book was the subject of controversial reviews but brought Freedman some 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 a trade craftsmen or photomechanical means.[6] Freedman received advice from T. E. Griffits, the most influential lithographer of the time, who held sway atVincent 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 ofKing George V.[8][6] The distinctive and handsome nature of this work brought him to wider public notice. His work - which took him just a weekend[9] - and the subsequent printing of the stamps was the subject ofThe King's Stamp, a documentary film by theGPO Film Unit. Freedman also designed Jubilee postal orders, in various values from sixpence to £1.[10] Freedman was now recognised as a force in autolithographic printmaking, and his down-to-earth attitude and lack of pretension made him welcome among the craftsmen at theCurwen Press, the Baynard Press and Chromoworks, the leading firms in the industry.[11] For the Baynard Press, he also designed theBaynard Claudia typeface, which he named after his wife, Beatrice Claudia Guercio.[12] Guercio was also an artist of some repute and had herself been commissioned to design a new GPO greetings telegram to commemorate the 1937 Coronation of George VI.[13]
In 1936 Freedman illustratedGeorge Borrow'sLavengro 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. He developed a technique whereby the black and white illustrations printed by line block simulated lithography, bringing a unity to the book. AlthoughLavengro was poorly subscribed, George Macy, owner of the book club, admired Freedman's work to such an extent that he was subsequently commissioned to illustrateHenry IV Part One, for the Limited Editions Club multi-volume Shakespeare. Tolstoy'sWar and Peace (1938) andAnna Karenina (1951) are recognised as two of the finest examples of twentieth century book design and have ensured Freedman a place in the history of book production.[14] For Macy's less exclusiveHeritage Press, Freedman illustrated Dickens'sOliver Twist (1939), Emily Brontë'sWuthering Heights (1941) and Charlotte Brontë'sJane Eyre (1942). The Bronte novels are challenging for the illustrator, and Freedman's interpretations were regarded as among the best. Other book jackets designed by Freedman during this period included those forDance of the Quick and the Dead bySacheverell Sitwell andInhale and Exhale byWilliam Saroyan, both of which were published in 1936 by Faber.[15]
Freedman was also employed byEaling Films to design its logo and provide the publicity for feature films such asJohnny Frenchman andSan Demetrio. A constant stream of commercial design work provided him with a good living.
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At the outbreak of the Second World War, Freedman was appointed as a full-time salaried war artist by theWar Artists' Advisory Committee and sent to France in April 1940 to record the work of theBritish Expeditionary Force.[7][16] He painted a number of works there but was frustrated by a perceived lack of support, particularly transport provision.[17] He was evacuated to England in May 1940 and worked on coastal defence subjects inSheerness and theIsle of Sheppey.[17] His full-time contract with WAAC ended in February 1941 after which WAAC purchased individual pieces from him but also offered him several short-term contracts with the Admiralty.[17] By July 1941, Freedman was on boardHMSRepulse, and produced the painting15-inch Gun Turret, HMS Repulse and several individual portraits of her crew.[6][14] The gun turret picture became a print, produced by the Baynard Press for the National Gallery.[4] At the end of 1942 he began an album of portraits of aircraft factory workers and then spent time aboardHMSTribune, which resulted in another album of portraits and the paintingInterior of a Submarine(1943), which was briefly displayed at theNational Gallery before being removed from view under wartime censorship regulations.[17] The painting is now in the permanent collection of theTate.[18] In June 1944 Freedman went to Portsmouth, before travelling to France after the D-Day landings. There he recorded scenes around the landing beaches and at the invasion headquarters, but in July was taken ill and sent to hospital in Liverpool.[19]
In post-war years, as a teacher at theRoyal College of Art and theRuskin School of Art, he was regarded by many of his students as an inspiring, if unpredictable, mentor who had little regard for time-wasters.[11]
Among Freedman's later book designs were those for the 1952 print ofThe Palm Wine Drinkard byAmos Tutuola and the 1953 edition ofThe Devil Rides Outside byJohn Howard Griffin.[15] The inimitable style of Freedman's book jackets drew the eye of the 'bookshop prowlers', as they were termed byMaurice 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'.[14] Among his last works were a series of lithographs, including a posterThe Darts Champion, to promote the firstGuinness Book of World Records published.[14] 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 home studio on 4 January 1958.[1][14] A major retrospective exhibition of his work, organised by theArts Council, was held at theTate later in 1958 but a second such exhibition was not held until 2020 when thePallant House Gallery hostedBarnett Freedman: Designs for Modern Britain.[6][14][20]
