Here is a little bit of information on David Freudenthal, some of which
I know
for certain, some of which I am assuming.
I am guessing that he was
born in
1915, give or take a few years. He was born in the United States,
probably
in a Midwestern state, because he had no discernible accent. I know
nothing
about his family.
David was an artist, and during the Depression years of the 1930s he
participated in the Federal governent's WPA (Works Progress
Administration)
program, which provided income for artists, musicians, writers, and
others in
need of work.
He painted, among other things, murals in post office
lobbies
and other Federal buildings. The scenes were of people at work, in
keeping
with the WPA goals of putting people to gainful employment. (I once
saw one
of his murals in a building in the Detroit area).
During the 1930s he also worked as a seaman (deckhand) on freighters on
the
Great Lakes.
One of these was the iron ore boat the Henry Ford II,
owned by
the Ford Motor Company. My interest in David is somewhat personal, or,
some
might say, vain.
In 1947, I was a deckhand on the Henry Ford II, and
he was
invited aboard to take a trip of about 6 days to sketch life on the
boats. I
was 17 years old at the time, and in much better shape then than I am
now, 54
years later. He picked me as his "model," and he sketched me at work,
doing
some of the typical tasks of the work day on a freighter. Some of
these we
staged for the purpose of the sketches, some he caught me at work in
the
actual performace of my duties (it was a fun job for a 17-year-old).
He converted his sketches sketches to paintings, to be sold. A Detroit newspaper (a year or two later) published a couple of them in their Sunday magazine a few years later.
The Norton Museum in West Palm Beach, Florida told me they found
records of
(fairly) recent sales of some of his paintings.
I would be interested
in
tracking down
the ones he did of me (just vain curiosity, I guess).
One bit of final infomation that I recall: he committed suicide sometime in the 1950s or 1960s.
Hugh Quinn