Today we’d like to introduce you to Fred Danziger

Hi Fred, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?

I began my art studies as a child. My mother often read to me bedtime stories from a book called “Animals of North America.” The next day, while she did her house work, she would give me crayons and blank paper, sit me at the kitchen table and ask me to draw her one of the animals! It, of course, kept me busy while she did her necessary tasks, and I became engrossed in trying to remember what a racoon or other animal looked like!.
When I was done, she would come, and always gave me copious praise, and quite often, a glass of milk and some cookies! So early on, I learned that, if you did a good crayon drawing, you received “milk and cookies!”
From that time on, I knew I wanted to be an artist. In 5th grade, a crucial event happened. The Carnegie Museum, in my home town of Pittsburgh, ran special Saturday art classes, and invited the area schools to send 2 students from each grade. I was one of those selected by my teacher Miss Cryan. For the next 8 years, I attended Saturday classes which were invaluable as to not just the skills taught, but also because it was obvious the “art” was something highly valued by our society.
The third key early event was having a wonderful high school art teacher, John Dropcho. John gave us all the attention and support needed to realize that art was just as important as our academic subjects, as well as things like sports, which received so much attention. John truly set me on the path to becoming a serious art student.
My training, initially at Indiana (PA) University- and then at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, gave me the skills I needed to take my art where it wanted to go. At this point, I have had countless exhibits, have work in numerous museums, many public and hundreds of private collections.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

The biggest obstacle has been the “artist’s dilemma” – how to do the thing you love and simply survive! Rent, food and art supplies all cost money and most of us have to earn it somehow. I did numerous jobs including taxi driver, steel worker and event decorator until I managed to get a part time teaching post. Fortunately, my wife Lill, also an artist, had employment as a graphics artist, so between the two of us, we did well enough.
The other obstacle was finding an audience for my work. With the great support of Rodger Lapelle Galleries, and later, Sherry French in New York City, Jame Gallery in Pittsburgh and for the last seven years, FAN Gallery in Philadelphia, I have had regular exhibits and my work has found receptive audiences.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?

Once, in a moment of confusion as to “where to go” with my art, my great teacher at the Academy, Franklin Watkins, once encouraged me to simply “look at life, and respond to it.” He said if I did that, I would never run out of my inspiration and motivation to paint. He was right! The “how, what and why” of my art revolves around seeing things, external to myself that seem of special significance. Most often it is something in nature, but often people, objects or human environments. They all are part of “life, being lived” and they provide endless possibilities.
I prefer to work with a kind of intense realism, except when working en plein air. My studio work often takes hundreds of hours to fully realize my subjects. IT is importat to me, to fully resolve light and form in the work. The “why” question is not so easy to define, but I know it is something that comes from within. Paintings from nature are a kind of prayer, or even “thanksgiving” to creation. Cityscapes often focus on unique light effects which fascinate me, and portraits are, to me, the most profound subject we can engage. Every portrait says something about life, across time geography and culture.
Rather than thinking of what sets my work “apart” from other artists, I like to think of what make my work “part of” the great tradition of artists and apprentices who for centuries have looked at life and said “I want to remark on that, call attention to that- that is art.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?

Growing up, I was always “the artist” of the crowd. Although I played sports and making music with friends has been important to me, I was always simply focused on art. I do think “Pittsburgh” and the hardworking culture that exists there, was also an important part of my life in art. I generally work, with breaks, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. just as if heading off to a steel mill or such.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://freddanziger.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fdanziger/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fred.danziger.1
• Twitter: https://x.com/FDanziger
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@fdaiph

Image Credits

all mine