February 22, 2005: Philadelphia Museum of Art: While Val and I were waiting to see the Dali exhibition, we stumbled across an artist that neither one of us had ever heard of before, Belgian Symbolist, Leon Frederic. The images featured here are from Frederic’s “Four Seasons”. The series portrays the four seasons symbolically with four child angels of Spiring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Frederic’s incredible workmanship and lyrical visualization have made him a new favorite of ours. Here are the four seasons, side by side:
In all of my years of art history somehow this genius was never mentioned. Perhaps it is the new focus on realism and a reexamination of movements outside of modernism that has brought Frederic to the surface after years of obscurity. It is great to see realism and abstraction and fantasy all getting their own fair recognition.
The second image is from the same series and features Summer. We’ve shown all of the images from this series. You should see the angels in person, however. They’re extraordinary! You can visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art and learn more about Leon at Whitford Fine Art and see more of his work on the I am a Child Blog.