
Morgan Martin
Head of Department
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Sold for US$38,175 inc. premium
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Head of Department

Specialist, Head of Sale
Provenance
Private collection, New York.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.
Literature
S.P. Fredericks, ed., E.P. Richardson, S. Sachs II, M.H. Fisher, B. Heller, M.D. Kramer, R.R. Salmon, M. Wilkinson, Marshall M. Fredericks, Sculptor, Detroit, Michigan, 2003, pp. 10, 151-53, 229-53, pl. 22, another example illustrated.
Freedom of the Human Spirit is Marshall M. Fredericks' most recognizable work and is a testament to his abilities as a refined sculptor of both human and animal forms. Freedom of the Human Spirit was originally sculpted as a monument for the 1964 World's Fair in New York and was erected in the Court of States of the fair. When asked about his design, Fredericks remarked, "I tried to take the male and female figures and free them from the earth. The only reason they stand up in the space at all is because they are suspended by sort of semi-visible abstract forms that keep them in the air, and then there are three giant wind swans flying with them. The idea was that these human beings, these people-us, do not have to be limited to the earth, to the ground. We can free ourselves mentally and spiritually whenever we want to, if we just try to do so." (M.M. Fredericks, Marshall Fredericks: Spirit in Sculpture, video interview, Detroit, Michigan, 1987) In 1996, the sculpture was moved to the main entrance of the Arthur Ashe US Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, where it stands today.