A Tribute to Faiya Fredman

Artist Faiya Fredman (1925-2020), the matriarch of San Diego’s contemporary art scene, passed away February 4 at age ninety-four. Fredman was a brilliant, dedicated artist who produced an ambitious and varied oeuvre during the more than sixty years she was active as a professional. She joined the Guild in the mid-1950s and remained a member for more than fifty years. The earliest juried Guild exhibitions in which she participated during the 1960s included works by now-legendary artists John Baldessari, Ethel Greene, and Richard Allen Morris. Fredman’s works ranged from room-sized, conceptually driven installations to classically proportioned, contemporary steel sculptures inspired by the female form. The themes she addressed in her art were rooted in the cycles of life and death, decay and renewal, and the ascent and decline of civilizations throughout history.

The artist’s most recent exhibition, The Steel Goddess: Works by Faiya Fredman, 1998-2018, hosted by the Oceanside Museum of Art, featured approximately seventy-five late-career works and was named by the San DiegoUnion-Tribune as one of the city’s top two museum shows of the year. Fredman’s exhibition history is extensive and her works can be found in many museum collections nationwide. Like most San Diego-area artists, however, she is substantially under-recognized.

A venue for a major retrospective of her work is currently being sought. Fredman remained active as an artist until days before her death. She had been preparing for her upcoming exhibition at the La Jolla Historical Society, Faiya Fredman: An Unfinished Journey, which will open this summer. A book titled The Steel Goddess: Late-Career Works by Faiya Fredman and authored by Guild member Mark-Elliott Lugo will be published in conjunction with the La Jolla exhibition. In accordance with the artist’s wishes, no formal public memorial service will be held.

See her obituary in the San Diego Union Tribune, February 16, 2020.

Faiya Fredman, c.2000, photo credit: Allwyn O'Mara