About the Artist

Maurice Freedman was born in Massachusetts, lived in New York, and painted in Maine. His desire to become an artist developed early and in high school he took classes at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston until 1921. Freedman then enrolled at the Massachusetts Normal School of Art (Massachusetts College of Art) in 1922 where he also earned a scholarship to continue his studies. In 1926 he was enrolled at the Art Students League in There only a year, he believed diving into the art scene overseas would be a better use of his time and talent and he moved to France where he took classes at Calarossi’s and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, studying with Andre L’hote and Fernand Leger. Another year later and he was discovered and purchased for the Lambert Collection and upon return to the U.S. he would secure life-long gallery representation at Midtown Galleries in New York.


In his review of Freedman's 1982 retrospective at Midtown Galleries, John Russell of the New York Times wrote, "he learned from Andre L’hote and others in Paris how to handle rich and strong color without letting it get out of hand and how to give individuality to the objects of everyday.  He has never lost that initial vigor of the hand or the driving curiosity as to what may come of it. There are paintings in this show that deserve to go straight into the history of American painting of this century."

Freedman's work is also in the collections of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Denver Art Museum, the Portland Museum of Art, the Ogunquit Museum of American Art and the Monhegan Museum, among others.