Watercolor of New York City(Brooklyn Heights) by David Fredenthal, c1940. 14.25 inches by 18.25 inches with frame, 12 inches by 16 inches without frame.

Davids notes: David Killen Gallery can now affirm that this image is definitely Brooklyn Heights, looking from the Promenade over the East River to lower Manhattan. We would like to thank a member of the Fredenthal family for confirming this location in the watercolor.

Across the East River from Manhattan island is the small hamlet of Brooklyn Heights, and what is depicted in the watercolor is the view from the gated promenade that lines the Northeast side of the borough.The whole view is nicely captured by Fredenthal in his frenetic energetic original colorful style.

David Fredenthal
(Source: dwigmore.com & davidfredenthal.com) David Fredenthal was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1914. As part of the WPA project he executed a number of murals including Five large panels in fresco under the Federal Art Project in the Brodhead Naval Armory, Detroit, MI, 1937. Some of his fresco and mural techniques were inspired by his friendship with Diego Rivera who had admired and encouraged him in the early 1930's.

After he won a traveling scholarship to Europe from The Museum of Modern Art at age 19, he was the recipient of two Guggenheim grants in Painting. He had his first solo exhibition at the Downtown Gallery in New York in 1937 at age 23 and many others after that including the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1947.

Well before Fredenthal was thirty, he already had two successful solo exhibitions at the Downtown Gallery in 1937 and 1938; received a MoMA fellowship to study in Italy; and was awarded a two-year Guggenheim Fellowship. In early 1940 while in Colorado finishing his Guggenheim Fellowship, Fredenthal learned Erskine Caldwell, author of Tobacco Road, had seen his paintings of factories and tenements in a recent exhibition at Columbia University and suggested Fredenthal should illustrate the deluxe edition of his novel to be published by Duell, Sloan & Pearce.

This news caused Fredenthal to head to Caldwells hometown of Wrens, Georgia, where he introduced himself to Caldwell's father Reverend I.C. Caldwell. Fredenthals companion on this adventure was Charles Shannon, an artist raised in Alabama who had received a Rosenwald Fund, traditionally a grant for African-American artists, to paint Southerners in 1938. Reverend Caldwell showed the artists around the area and introduced them to local sharecroppers. Fredenthal was in Georgia for two months before he returned to New York. Back home, Fredenthal then read Tobacco Road and adjusted his drawings of what he had seen to fit the story. For the final drawings, the key scenes were done in brush and brown ink for color reproduction and the remaining ones were executed in pen and black ink.

Fredenthal sent the drawings to Erskine Caldwell who convinced the publisher Duell, Sloan & Pearce they were perfect for the story. The illustrated edition was published in November 1940 and was selected by The New York Times as one of the best three illustrated books of 1941.

He was a War Artist Correspondent for both the State Department (the European and Asian fronts) and Life magazine from 1943 to 1946 and his work was featured in Life Magazine regularly during the war and after until the end of his life.

Also featured in Life in 1956, were drawings that Fredenthal had vividly recorded on his sketch pad, of the entire filming of the movie, The Pride and the Passion, starring Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, and Frank Sinatra, along the treacherous mountain passes of Spain.

Though he was fiercely committed to an art that expressed deeply human social values and issues and was quite hostile to abstraction, he was friendly with a number of abstract artists such as David Smith, Ad Reinhardt, Philip Guston, Paul Feeley, and Herman Cherry and was very admired and respected by them as one of art historys great draftsmen.

Fredenthal died in Rome, Italy in 1958.

It seems to be in good condition, laid down on a backing.There is a waterstain on the lower left hand side of the backing but when it hits the watercolor the watercolor seems to be unaffected, so either they laid it down on an already waterstained back(unlikely) or when the waterstain started from the edge of the backing, it was so weak when it hit the watercolor it got absorbed underneath and ended.You don't see the waterstain continuing on the watercolor on top.You would have to have a professional separate the two to see if the underside of the watercolor/drawing was affected.I doubt it.