Rising Fog

Maurice Freedman

Frenchman’s Bay (1932) — *Frenchman’s Bay* (1932)

May 27 - July 24, 2021

About The Show

Shortly after Maurice Freedman’s unexpected passing in 1985, his wife, Louise, along with their son Alan and Alan’s partner, Marjorie, still grieving their loss, ascended the stairs to the top-floor studio of their home in Hastings-on-Hudson. Entering the studio for the first time since Freedman’s death, the family was met with stacks of paintings, palettes, sketchbooks, tubes of oil paints, and coffee cans filled with brushes. With the aroma of turpentine still pungent in the air, the three began pulling paintings – remnants of the artist’s prodigious, nearly 60-year career -- from every corner. Inconspicuously tucked away were two rolled canvases. These paintings, carefully wrapped in packing paper and previously unseen, were the largest Freedmans ever created.

One of these hidden gems, 1977’s Rising Fog, is a panoramic vista of the foggy New England coast. Far from the somber, ominous shroud ingrained in the popular imagination, Freedman captured the fog as ephemera, a joyful expression, atmospheric and energetic in a soft and cheerful palette. Even in his absence and through their heartache, Freedman provided his family with the resounding, life-affirming “Yes!” that is a hallmark of his style.

For this reason, we’ve chosen Rising Fog as the titular painting for Cove Street Arts’ Maurice Freedman retrospective, which celebrates the vitality of the artist’s work as so often expressed through his love of the New England landscape and that of Maine in particular.

Featured Artists

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Maurice Freedman

As a pioneer painter, Freedman is identified with a loosely knit school of artists in New England in the late 20s and 30s that included Marin, Hartley, Knaths and Avery. Maurice Freedman was one of the most accomplished practitioners of an American Art that attempted a synthesis of certain aspects of modern European art and native American subject matter.