Friedenson was, I believe from all available evidence I’ve yet found, born in Manchester to Russian - Polish parents but spent most of his youth in Leeds. (apart from what appears to be a two year return to Russia when he was very young). He began studying art seriously when he was apprenticed to a sign writer in the Leeds. He was precocious as an artist and had his first painting accepted for exhibition by the Royal Academy when he was only seventeen. He had, by the, changed his given name to Arthur. A year later, in 1890, he enrolled at the Acade´mie Julian and two years on from that, at the Academy in Antwerp, getting to know Henry Hopwood at both establishments. He spent time at the Acade´mie Julian again in 1896.
The year that he began his studies in Paris, he spent the summer lodging with Mr. and Mrs George Porritt in Staithes together with Harold Knight and another Nottingham artist, A.P. Allsebrook. He used this base as his summer lodgings for some years, Allsebrook being replaced in the household by Fred Mayor. Like Mayor, Friedenson was a keen cricketer and used to play in local matches. He was a founder member of the Staithes Art Club in 1901.
In time Friedenson deserted Staithes for Runswick where he stayed at the Runswick Bay Hotel. It was in that village that he met Lily Watson, the daughter of the Principal of the Harrogate School of Art. They married in 1906 and the couple moved South to Dorset in 1909. He painted many scenes around Wareham, Poole and Thruxton in Hampshire making spectacular use of everything he learned in Staithes about the interaction of sky and the landscape beneath.
As he grew older, Friedenson suffered from depression and found it harder to paint. Sir Winston Churchill was a great admirer of his work and organised a Civil List pension for him when it became increasingly difficult for Friedenson and his wife to cope financially. Many of his later paintings mirror this depression, with dark and moody skies casting their shadow on the landscape below. Glimmers of sunshine often light up sections of the cloud and streak downwards to relieve the gloom of the countryside below, and I like to believe that this also reflects lighter moments in his life at the time. This type of painting by Friedenson is powerful and emotive and demonstrates a unique vision which elevates most examples far above the level of simple depictions of cloudy days.
His earlier work is more concerned with sunlight than with cloud and often contains lively renditions of people, boats and the sea; wind and movement still stir the surface of his canvases and light filtering through mist imbues them with tranquillity. I challenge anyone to show me work by a painter who can depict sunlight, shadow and wind better than Friedenson.
Friedenson exhibited at the Royal Society of Artists, Birmingham, the Fine Art Society, the Glasgow Institute of fine Arts, the Goupil Gallery, the International Society, the Walker Gallery, Liverpool, Manchester City Art Gallery, the New English Art Club, the New Gallery, the Royal Academy, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Royal Scottish Academy and the Yorkshire Union of Artists of which he was a Vice President. Runswick Bay, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1907, was bought for the Tate Gallery (now the Tate Britain) through the Chantrey bequest. His work is also hung in public galleries in Aberdeen, Birkenhead, Bradford, Bournemouth, Leeds, Liverpool and Whitby.
Bibliography:
Staithes Group Centenary Exhibition, Rosamund Jordan 2003
The Staithes Group, Peter Phillips, Phillips and Sons, Marlow1993
The Yorkshire Union of Artists 1888 - 1922, Dennis Child, Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society Ltd, Leeds 2001
The Dictionary of British Artists 1880 -1940, J. Johnson & A. Greutzner, Antique Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge 1976
© Rosamund Jordan 2006
