From the Vault: Frederick McDuff

 

Frederick McDuff (1931-2011) was a self-taught contemporary impressionist painter. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama. McDuff’s inspiration for pursuing painting goes back to seeing Walt Disney’s Snow White in theaters, awe struck by the color and detail in the film, he began painting using compositional elements and color similarly to techniques used in animation cells. McDuff was heavily influenced by his time in the U.S. Army as well, as he was inspired by the German countryside of Heidelberg, where he was stationed.  After his service in the Army, he studied at the Art Students League in New York, while spending a lot of his time in museums admiring the 17th and 18th century landscape painters of France and Italy. These museum trips sparked larger trips to France to closer study the landscape. In the 1960’s he moved from New York to Washington D.C in the 1960s, where he participated in the Art in Embassies program, his paintings being featured in the American Embassies in Paris and La Paz. His work was also featured in Reagan’s private quarters of the white house. His work can be found in private and corporate collections both nationally and internationally, including the collection of Ethel Kennedy and Burt Reynolds.