American, 20th century.
Born 1920, Charleston, South Carolina; died 1998, New York.
Freddie Brice's plywood panels are painted in mainly black and white with an urban minimalism and immediacy. Depicting animals, interiors, clocks, watches and jewelry, they reduce complex forms and groupings to their graphic essence, interchanging black and white and positive and negative. As contemporary artists continue to look at outsider art for inspiration Brice's raw painting style finds a renewed relevance in the work of painters such as Joe Bradley, Chris Martin and Donald Baechler.
Freddie Brice was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1920, and at age 9 moved to Harlem, where later he spent much of his time at the Apollo Theater, a fan of acts such as: Diana Washington, Chuck Webb and the Inkspots to name a few. Brice held numerous jobs including an elevator operator, a laundry worker and most importantly at the Brooklyn Navy Shipyard, where he painted ships.
After a long history of incarceration and institutionalization he started making paintings in 1983 at an art workshop on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. In 1991 Brice's work was featured in the exhibition "Art's Mouth" at Artists Space curated by Connie Butler. Freddie Brice's work is in the collections of: The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Milwaukee Museum of Art and The Old Dominion University, Gordon Collection, Norfolk, Virginia. Additionally Brice's work has been exhibited at The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, VA and Milwaukee Museum of Art, Milwaukee WI. He died in New York in 1998.
- Courtesy of Kerry Schuss Art, New York
Selected Solo & Two-Person Exhibitions
2012, Beverly Semmes & Freddie Brice, KS Art, New York
2010, Freddie Brice, KS Art, New York
2000, Paintings and Drawings, KS Art, New York
1992, Solo exhibition at The Outsider Art Fair, KS Art, New York
1991, Freddie Brice, Ricco Maresca Gallery, New York
1989, Freddie Brice and Mary T. Smith, Ricco Maresca Gallery, New York
Selected Group Exhibitions
2011, POP: Eddie Arning, Freddie Brice, Ray Hamilton, curated by Anne Doran, KS Art, New York
2010, Looking Back: The Fifth White Columns Annual, White Columns, New York
2009, The Outsider Art Fair, KS Art, New York
2005, The Outsider Art Fair, KS Art, New York
2002, The Outsider Art Fair, KS Art, New York
2000, The Outsider Art Fair, KS Art, New York
2007, The Outsider Art Fair, Maxwell Projects, New York
2003, Freddie Brice, Berenberg Gallery, Boston
1998, Diaspora: Seven African-American Artists: Freddie Brice, Robert St. Brice, Odilon Pierre, Ras Dizzy, Leonard Daley, Thornton Dial, Kevin Sampson, Cavin-Morris Gallery, New York
1998, The Outsider Art Fair, Cavin-Morris Gallery, New York
1997, Flying Free: Self-Taught Artists from the Collection of Baron and Ellin Gordon, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg (Virginia)
1997, Personal Voice: The Ruth and Robert Vogele Collection of Self-Taught Art, Milwaukee Museum of Art, Milwaukee (Wisconsin)
1997, Millenial Intentions: Post 20th Self-Taught Artists, Cavin-Morris Gallery, New York
Selected Collections
Milwaukee Museum of Art, Milwaukee
Museum of Everything, London
Old Dominion University, Norfolk
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
Selected Bibliography
Doran, Anne, "Freddie Brice: The Work of This Outsider Artist is Quintessentially Urban," TimeOut New York, April 19, 2010.
Johnson, Ken, "Freddie Brice," New York Times, April 16, 2010.
Rexer, Lyle, How to Look at Outsider Art, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 2005.
Glueck, Grace, "Visionaries Who Portray Reality from the Outside In," New York Times, January 28, 2000.
Long, Carola, "Freddie Brice," Raw Vision, No. 32, Fall 2000.
Flying Free, exhibition catalogue, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, 1997.
Personal Voice, exhibition catalogue, Milwaukee Museum of Art, Milwaukee, 1997.
American Self-Taught, Ricco Maresca Gallery & Knopf, New York, 1993.
Art's Mouth, exhibition catalogue, Artists Space, New York, 1991.
Filmography
"Freddie Brice Paints Two Paintings," a film by Les LeVeque and Kerry Schuss, 1990 (22:44 minutes)