Oils on panel, 13"x15½", signed and signed and inscribed verso. A silvery sky magically filters pale gold light onto the landscape. The moving clouds cast deep shadows in the foreground evoking memories of the Yorkshire coast that he had left many years previously.
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Oils on panel, 7½"x9½", signed and signed again verso, inscribed with title and dated 1927. Full of sunshine and shadow, this wind-blown picture is painted with streaks and curves of thick paint using a dry brush. Rather than keep repeating myself, try exploring the effect of sun, shadow and wind by clicking onto the larger view of the painting.
The pair to this picture is shown below. The price is for both.
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Oils on panel, 7½"x9½", signed and signed again verso, inscribed with title and dated 1927. Friedenson has painted this picture in the same manner as its pair. Deceptively simple at first sight, the harder you look the more you get back from this painting: silvery sky, gentle silvery lightpervading everything and a soft silver mist rising from the base of the hills. Look for small details by clicking on the larger image and see how they enhance the composition. The price is for the pair.
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Oils on panel, 8"x11¼", signed with initials and inscribed verso: St. Monans Harbour. To my friend Harold from Arthur Friedenson (Friedenson and Harold Knight shared lodgings in Staithes for many years. 1907 was the year that Harold and Laura Knight left Staithes). We were very pleased to source privately this Staithes Group period painting with its inscription to Harold Knight. Friedenson painted many pictures of St. Monans and this one shows the lovely silvery light of he liked to paint throughout his career.
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Oils on panel, 12¼"x15½", signed. Inscribed verso with 'Near Rodburough, Gloucestershire' and signed again by Arthur Friedenson: bears exhibition label (No.1) with same information and price of £33; bears label of James Bourlet & Sons Ltd.
A blue summer sky is partially obscured by swiftly-blown cumulous clouds illuminated from the left by the hidden sun. The strong wind bends the branches of the trees causing their thatch of leaves to wave wildly. The racing clouds cast moving shadows across the landscape.
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Oils on panel of Poole Harbour,13"X16" signed by Arthur Friedenson in pencil verso. Ex Studio Collection. This is a tranquil, peaceful scene with water lapping gently around the boat.
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Oils on panel, 13"x16", this painting full of daffodils is from the Studio Collection of Arthur Friedenson. A lovely Spring day with diffused light filtering downwards to intensify the soft gold of the daffodils.
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April 1909, signed by Arthur Friedenson, inscribed on reverse, oil on board, 10½"x14". Ex Studio Collection. Another painting which glories in the juxtaposition of strong sunlight and shadow and which gives the sky and landscape equal importance.
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Oils on board, 6½"x10", inscribed verso Study of a Dartmoor Road and signed Arthur Friedenson. Ex Studio Collection. This charming little picture presents another opportunity to buy a work by Friedenson at a very reasonable price. SOLD
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ARTHUR A. (ABRAHAM MICHAEL) FRIEDENSON 1872 – 1955

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, b y 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 in 1909.

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