Design and Art Australia Online

painter, illustrator, cartoonist, printmaker and teacher, was born in Caulfield, Victoria. He studied at Melbourne Technical College (RMIT) in 1929-35. From 1936 he worked as a freelance illustrator and cartoonist for Melbourne weeklies; His ink cartoon Calvalcade of Billy 1940, is in La Trobe, State Library of Victoria, donated by the artist -with other works in 1988. He was an official war artist in the Royal Australian Air Force in 1944-45. As a teacher at RMIT after the war, he initiated the Melbourne Print Group in November 1951; it included Geoffrey Bardwell, assistant lecturer, and associates Christine Aldor, Fred Williams , etc. (see 'Melbourne Prints’ in McCulloch).

He designed Victoria’s Spa Health Resorts: Daylesford, Hepburn Springs c.1952 (National Gallery of Australia) for the Victoria Railways, Australia (NGA poster no. 273)

Freedman did a series of topographical 'Views of Melbourne’ for a book published in 1963. He was commissioned to paint a large mural of the history of aviation for the Australian War Memorial (1967-72), then was appointed state artist for Victoria in 1973, a position he apparently retained until his death in 1999. His first commission, a mural on the theme of transport for Spencer Street Station (removed for reconstruction of Southern Cross Station, 2004), was followed by a number of murals, including one on the theme of regional history for the new state offices at Geelong.

Writers:

Kerr, Joan Note:

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007