(1908-2002)

Joseph Friebert is represented in nearly every public museum and university/college gallery in the state of Wisconsin, including about a dozen works at the Milwaukee Art Museum, more than twenty at the Museum of Wisconsin Art, and a nice collection at the Chazen Museum in Madison, WI. His work is also in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Speed Museum (Louisville), Mint Museum (Chicago), Rhode Island School of Design Museum (Providence), Smith College Museum (Northampton), Spencer Museum (University of Kansas), Sheldon Museum (University of Nebraska), and others.

Friebert was an accomplished artist, and he exhibited widely during his lifetime. His work was shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the 1956 Venice Biennale. His first career was pharmacy, but five years after becoming a registered pharmacist, he began painting. He graduated from the Milwaukee State Teacher’s College and taught at both the Layton School of Art and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he was a full professor of art.

Kohler Foundation was delighted when the artist’s daughter, Susan Rossen of Chicago, sought our assistance in making further placements of her father’s work. The Foundation accepted roughly 350 paintings. They were photographed and documented, evaluated for condition issues, and as they were selected by museums, sent to Parma Conservation in Chicago for conservation treatment prior to gifting to various museums.

Gifts have been made to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (Philadelphia), the Detroit Institute of the Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum (Milwaukee), Block Art Museum (Northwestern University), Chazen Museum, Princeton University, University of Georgia-Athens, Carroll University, Clark Art Institute (MA), Milwaukee Art Museum, Museum of Wisconsin Art, and Peabody Essex (MA), among others.