The ART of FRED SWEDLUN, a/k/a ERNEST T. FREDERICKS, and GLEN SWEDLUN

As a part of the May Festival of the Arts, a collection of paintings by the late Eureka Springs artists, Fred Swedlun a/k/a Ernest Fredericks and his son, Glen Swedlun, will be on display the entire month of May at the Eureka Springs Historical Museum. This will be the premier event for the museum’s newly remodeled art gallery on the second floor.

Fred Swedlun was born of Swedish parents on a farm near McPhearson, Kansas in 1877. The farm life not appealing to him, he made his way east to study and exhibit at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art. It was there that he created the pseudonym Ernest T. Fredericks and became well-known for his regional landscape paintings.

Swedlun was influenced by Western American Master Painter, Birger Sandze, and he developed his talent by constant practice, observation and analyzation. But it was nature itself that inspired him. With an inborn persistence, he studied its many different moods working with untiring energy using a technique entirely his own. His sense of color was evident even in his first canvasses and proved that Swedlun/Fredericks created in himself an original personality whose talent need not be borrowed from any one. His subjects are very simple and have a carrying power giving the impression that he works without apparent effort.

Glen Swedlun was born in Cairo (some reports say Elgin), Illinois in 1902 and grew up in Chicago. At age 27 he gave up a professional baseball career to become a painter like his father. The senior Swedlun taught Glen not only how to paint but to appreciate the natural things of our environment that provide and artist with the necessary beauty to put on canvas. His paintings are almost entirely landscapes, woodland scenes in the brilliance of autumn, the bright lights of summertime, the freshness of spring, and the snow-laden burden of winter.

In later life, Fred discovered the majestic beauty of the Ozarks and returned to Chicago describing it as as an “artist’s gold mine of color and composition.” In 1950, Fred and his wife along with his son and his wife moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas where Fred and Glenn painted and taught art classes in the Ozarks until their deaths. Fred died in 1959 followed by Glenn in 1982.

A reception to honor the lives and work of the two artists will be held on May 8th from 6:00 P.M. until 9:00 P.M. Light refreshments will be served.

The museum is located at 95 S. Main Street and is open 9:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, Saturdays in May 9:30 a.m. until 9:00 p.m., Sunday 11:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. For more information, call Director Ginni Miller at the museum, 479/253-9417.

Tags: art, Current Exhibit, Ernest Fredericks, Eureka Artists, Exhibit, Swedlun