Painting with Bronze; The Work of Freda Coffing Tschumy

Carole A. Fewell Gallery |  January 27 – May 7, 2023

Curated by Yuni Villalonga, Director of Curatorial Programs

This exhibition gathers a selection of abstract, experimental work in bronze and other materials by local artist Freda Coffing Tschumy, from the 1960s to today.

With a broad education that includes painting, drawing, stone carving, and bronze casting, as well as art history, English, and religion, Tschumy has developed a strong teaching career alongside her studio practice. In 1991, she became the Director of the University of Miami Foundry, where she co-founded the program Art After Dark and taught Bronze Casting. Also in the 1990s, she started The Foundry Guild, along with other artists. In 2004, she was asked to help create the foundry at ArtSouth in Homestead, and four years later, she joined the Foundry at Miami Dade College/Kendall as an adjunct professor.

Since 1974, Tschumy has widely exhibited her work nationally. Her public artwork is currently on view at the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden and at the University of Miami Metro Station. Her work is collected by the FIU Wolfsonian Museum, Miami Dade Art in Public Places, Vassar College, Count and Countess Fernando Pecci-Blunt, Taffy Gould and the Canadian Postal Museum.

Special thanks to our sponsor

View of Freda C. Tschumy’s studio in Coconut Grove, Photo: Pavel Acosta

Tschumy’s bronze abstract sculpture holds an unusual, often reverse mirror up to the physical world, inspired by how energy has sculpted the universe.  Her art loosely evokes how forces of nature have transformed our world, from roots and branches of trees to hidden interiors of sea shells, from whirling water spouts to jewel-like galaxies visible only through high-powered telescopes” says Elisa Turner in the exhibition catalog.