FRED MACHETANZ
(1908
- 2002)
Fred
Machetanz is the most widely acclaimed artist to continue
the traditional frontier image of Alaska into the present
day. Focusing on Alaskan animals, Native people, pioneers,
and the dramatic landscape, Machetanz's work is widely
reproduced and highly sought after by individuals and public
collections throughout the United States and abroad.
Born in 1908 in Kenton, Ohio, and trained in art at Ohio
State University, Machetanz intended a brief visit to his
uncle Charles Traeger's remote Unalakleet, Alaska trading
post in 1935, but remained for two years. After working as
an illustrator in New York, sailing with a Coast Guard
patrol along Alaska's coast, and serving in the Aleutians
with the Navy in World War II, the artist returned to
Unalakleet, where he met and married writer Sara Dunn in
1947. The couple worked together on books, films, and
lecture tours for many years, and they lived in the home
they built near Palmer from 1950 until Sara's death in
September 2001.
Since that time, Machetanz has become almost as much a
legend as Sydney Laurence and Eustace Ziegler among
long-time Alaskans. His oil paintings on masonite employ
ultramarine blue underpainting followed by many traditional
linseed oil glazes, achieving a luminosity reminiscent both
of Renaissance painters and of the twentieth-century painter
Maxfield Parrish, who was an early influence on the artist.
