Biography
Judith M. Friebert
Born 1945 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Resides in Boylston, Massachusetts
(2009)
Growing up in Milwaukee, Judith Friebert was “surrounded by art,” stating, “I have been an artist all my adult life. My artist parents, Betsy Ritz Friebert and Joseph Friebert, were obviously strong influences.” The family traveled together around Wisconsin and Europe to sketch the landscape. Inheriting an interest in the beauty of line from her mother and a feeling for tonal effects from her art professor father, Friebert still prefers to work outside in nature to this day. Now living in Boylston, Massachusetts, her Wisconsin background informs a continuing interest in the cows and human figures on dairy farms. Having worked in a variety of media, she now creates landscapes using pencil, chalk, charcoal and pastel.
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Judith earned a B.S. in fine arts in 1967. Under the tutelage of Warrington Colescott, she received her MFA in 1969. She went on to study art and art history at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, University of Aix-en-Provence, France, and at Boston University in Massachusetts. After teaching art in the Wellesley and Boston public schools for many years, she returned to school to study library science and received a MLS degree from the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science in Boston in 1990.
Having been employed as Art Librarian at the Toledo Museum of Art and Special Collections Librarian at the University of Toledo in Ohio, Friebert is presently Children’s Librarian at the Boylston Public Library and Acting Director at the Hatfield Public Library in Massachusetts. She has written children’s books, curated book exhibitions and written an award winning exhibition catalogue. Maintaining an art studio in Clinton, Massachusetts, she is represented by the Hudson Gallery in Sylvania, Ohio. Her artwork has been exhibited nationally and is included in museum and university permanent collections.
Selected one-person exhibition
1998 Judith M. Friebert: Pastel Landscapes, Frames/Ink, Athol, Massachusetts
Selected Group Exhibitions
1993 A Breadth of Vision: The Ritz Collection, Milwaukee Art Museum,
Artists and the Human Form, Del Conte Gallery, Milwaukee, WI
1994 A Celebration of Jewish Presence, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University
1996 Nudes from Waterstreet Studio, Tillman Gallery, Toledo, Ohio
1997 Self-Portraits, Wisconsin Artists, Charles Allis Art Museum, Milwaukee, I
Pastels, Hart Gallery, Northampton, Massachusetts
© 2009, 5/14 Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend, Wisconsin 4/6/2010