THE ARTIST
CATHERINE FREUDENBERG TRAYKOVSKI
Catherine Freudenberg Traykovski is the eldest child of a large, artistic family that has made art for many generations. Her father, Albrecht Freudenberg, was a German painter who worked and taught in New York City and Long Island. A graduate of the University of Heidelberg Translation Institute and St. Luke’s School of Nursing, Catherine was motivated and inspired by her father’s work since early childhood, and throughout her studies and professional career has pursued artistic training through workshops and classes.
Catherine has indulged in her passion for printmaking for many years and has learned techniques such as intaglio with Art Werger and monotype with Talia Siegal, and most recently Solarplate printmaking with Dan Welden, who she has worked with at his studio in Sag Harbor, New York. Sessions with Matt Christie at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, Colorado, have served to continue refining her techniques. Aside from printmaking, Catherine has studied pastel drawing with Gamble Stampli at the 92nd Street YMHA and watercolor and flora painting with Susan Shatter at the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. Travel plays a vital role in Catherine’s work and she and her husband Alexander have traveled extensively through France, Germany, and Italy as well as several countries in South America. Alexander’s photographic impressions captured on these trips have influenced many recent series of prints.
In addition to exhibiting her artwork and organizing a traveling exhibition of her family’s creative output, Catherine’s ambition is to teach art to Headstart and pre-school children in her Upper West Side neighborhood in Manhattan.
THE FREUDENBERG ARTISTIC LEGACY
ABOUT ALBRECHT FREUDENBERG
Albrecht Walter Freudenberg (1913-1979) was an art student influenced by German Expressionism. He studied at the Kunstakademie Berlin and continued at the Munich Academy of Art until 1937. As his wife-to-be, Marie Louise, was a photographer of Jewish origin, he immigrated the United States in 1938 settling on Central Park West and 106th street where Catherine was born in 1939.
After receiving a history of art degree from the New School for Social Research in 1959, Albrecht continued his career as an artist while teaching art history and printmaking at Adelphi University from 1959 to 1977. Throughout his career he exhibited at art galleries in and around New York City. His work is in New York’s Museum of Modern Art Print Collection and the Freudenberg Archives in Weinheim, Germany holds a significant woodcut series printed during the Civil Rights Movement in Selma, Mississippi.
OTHER FREUDENBERGS
Her sister, Johanna Freudenberg is also a painter, landscape gardener and children’s book author and illustrator. The entire family, by tradition is connected by painting and printmaking.
Catherine’s future plans include a retrospective of her father’s work along with the paintings of her sisters, Johanna Freudenberg from London, England, and Basha Freudenberg from Putney, Vermont.