I spent a morning with Freda Alschuler and in parallel did a shoot of a small segment of the work she has done to date. Freda is a Swiss, born in Britain, artist whose work has been exhibited in the Saatchi Gallery, auctioned in Sotheby’s and published in many books. She was a fashion designer before the advent of her children and later pursued her love for art in the form of water colours, acrylic and mixed media. She has at least 40 years experience of figure drawing and she intimates this is her real passion. With her Venice Girl piece, she won the prestigious 2008 ‘Showdown’ Saatchi Gallery award. To add to her achievements, Freda has taught and run many workshops in a number of countries as well as on board the QM2 QV and QE.
Her main studio is in the beautiful city of Martigny, Switzerland, however the shoot took place in her ‘hideway’ studio on the gold coast of Zurich, Meilen. As I studied her art work, books and walked around her studio, each image told its own story. Freda was more than happy to discuss the story behind the various pieces and the thought process she goes through in developing her work. I was also given a demonstration of how an idea is translated into one of her pieces. As I sat and observe the development of this piece; I couldn’t help but ‘in my head’ add my ideas to the development of it.
Note this was kept to myself, as I was keen to see the outcome undiluted with my thoughts. Her favourite medium is water colour, so I was delighted to see this used for her demonstration. In the process of developing this piece, Freda went on to say that watercolour has a mind of its own, which creates wonderful happy accidents. So there is an element of surprise in the development process and I suppose that is part of her enjoyment.*
Freda draws on many influences in creating a piece of art work and some of her pieces have many layers to reflect her 
thinking at the time. Much of her inspiration and her major theme come from the human body, in particular the female form. She is fascinated with textures, patterns and vibrant colours. Some of her latest works were adorned with used decorative wallpaper and her own linoleum patterns prints to complete a piece. Generally, most of the collages have a figurative fashion influence, which seems to bring her full circle back to her previous life of dress and fashion design. She starts with a nude figure (painted from real life models) and often ‘dresses’ them – on canvass – with patterns/materials that appeal to her at the time. You can see how this approach comes together well to create some of her well know works. Freda adds that she aims to reach into the soul of the person when she embarks on a portrait. So it is interesting to see, observing the end product, what she has discovered through her portraiture creations. She jokingly requested that I pose for one of her nude figures, but I had an army of excuses to avoid this experience. A small part of me would have liked to see what she would have discovered or interpreted from this. Luckily, this thought only lasted for a couple of minutes before we continued with her story. The irony of this situation was that this was exactly what I was hoping to achieve and gain from Freda with this shoot – an insight, a small segment of my understanding of who Freda Alschuler is. A photographer and an artist are pretty much the same. They just use different mediums to express themselves.
As mentioned above, one of her pieces – the CONFEDERERATION HELVETIQUE was auctioned at Sotherby’s. It was a print of canvas after the artist’s original oil painting, designed as Roger Federer appearing on a fictional Swiss postage stamp, inspired by a pun on his name and the Swiss Post Office, signed in black marker pen by the tennis champion himself, the reverse additionally signed by Freda. The proceeds from the sale went to a children’s charitable organisation.
I was drawn to Freda through a recent meeting and was keen to see what I could develop through the lens. When I encounter an interesting individual, often situational poses of them flashes in my mind and as a photographer, you want to convert your imagination into a concrete picture. I was very pleased with the outcome of this shoot. I managed to capture how I saw Freda, a fascinating, funny, warm and thoughtful person with many layers to her personality. Her love of art can be easily appreciated and importantly that she lives life the way she wants, share her thoughts through her art and treasures the beauty in the ordinary. I could have spent the whole day with Freda, but as any photographer will tell you – once the shoot was done you are keen to develop them so that your ideas can be viewed and then you compare your original thoughts and images in your head to the actual shoot. Did I tell a fraction of her story through the lens? Well, only the viewer can tell, but I did enjoyed myself, we had a good laugh in the whole shoot and I’m personally happy with the end result.
Below is a mini slideshow of some of her works captured on the morning of the shoot and it demonstrates her differing styles, many ideas and vivid use of colour.
* The end result of her demonstration can be see as the last slide in this slideshow. Signed and surprisingly presented to me as a reminder of our day together. Thank you Freda.
More photos of the shoot will be on my professional Facebook page later.
Recent Comments