Biography from the Archives of askART

Bill Freeman (1927-2013)

A resident of both Scottsdale, Arizona and Jackson, Wyoming, Bill Freeman was raised by artist parents. For twelve years, he was a cowboy and then fought forest fires for the U.S. Forest Service, worked as a trail guide and helped conduct biological field research for the Arizona Game and Fish Department which began publishing his western sketches. As a full time artist, he depicts the landscape, western genre and restores and makes replicas of ancient Indian pots.

The best of both worlds is one way to describe Bill Freeman's life because he lived in warm Scottsdale, Arizona during the winter months but moved to his other home in Jackson, Wyoming when summer comes. In both places, he painted and sculpted, transferring to canvas or metal realistic depiction's of western landscapes and animals.

Freeman did not set out to be a full-time artist, even though both his parents were artists, and he had his first art show when he was seventeen years old. The lure of the open range attracted him to be a cowboy, a life he enjoyed for twelve years.

As a full time, professional artist, Bill Freeman painted and sculpted the things he knew best and loved most. He had seen the West as few people have--from a cowboy's life to big game hunts--and his canvases and bronzes reflect the honesty and respect he feels for this time and place.

Another phase of Freeman's artistic output was restoring ancient Indian pottery and duplicating the original down to the finest detail. Freeman began doing the restorations not for profit, but rather as a challenge to recreate the work of craftsmen long gone.

Freeman's work is included in numerous publications, among them The Cowboy in Art, Contemporary Western Artists, Western Painting Today and Outdoor Arizona.

He has produced many paintings on commission for private collectors.

Source: The Taos Gallery Scottsdale