Biography:

Larry Freeman was born in Missoula, Montana. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Mankato State College in 1966 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Oregon in 1969. He was a draftsman for the E.F. Johnson Company from 1967-68. He joined the faculty of Eastern Michigan University in 1969 and taught drawing there until his death in 1995. His works have been exhibited in numerous regional and national shows. Among his many awards are the Dayton-Hudson Distinguished visiting Artist/Teacher Award and the National Drawing Competition Award from "American Drawing II". He received grants in support of his work from the National Foundation for the Arts (1974) and the Michigan Council for the Arts (1974).

Freeman's fastidious pencil drawings, sometimes executed on stone-like Hydrocal surfaces, owe much to his interest in Megalithic stone structures (such as Stonehenge) in England and France and Native American earthworks in Ohio and other states. He was also quite interested in American painting in the 19th century and its expression of a uniquely American vision. In his later works he found a way to combine these seemingly disparate influences into a coherent, somewhat surreal vision of his own. Using naturalistic representations of architectural interiors in a somewhat disjointed environment containing the totemic objects of tribal society these works transcend their aparently single quiet domestic setting to imply multiple times and spaces and the ritualistic character of human social organization within all cultures.