The Sculptor's Studio

In the early 1990s, Fredericks and Ned Arbury corresponded about expanding the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Gallery with an educational studio focused on the processes of creating sculpture. When Fredericks died in 1998, the objects from his Royal Oak and Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, studios, including clay models, armatures, molds, machinery, tools, sculptures, archives and equipment were gifted to Saginaw Valley State University and what soon would be renamed the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum.

Museum expansion in 2003 created a gallery dedicated to explaining the casting process of sculpture and giving visitors the experience of being in a sculptor's studio. The Sculptor's Studio was designed based on photographs of Fredericks' Royal Oak studio.

The casting process from clay to bronze for Lord Byron, Fredericks' final sculpture, was filmed for educational use with the Sculptor's Studio in mind. Both the film and the clay and plaster models of Lord Byron comprise an important segment of the Sculptor's Studio exhibit. A touch-screen kiosk allows visitors to see The Magic of Marshall M. Fredericks: The Making of the Poet, Lord Byron film/DVD, view photographs of his Royal Oak studio, and learn about the Sculpture Garden.

While the Sculptor's Studio is not a replica of Fredericks' studio, all the objects are from his studio and nothing was recreated. A large didactic panel explains the lost-wax and sand-casting methods. More than 300 objects and artifacts illustrate the creative process of one of America's greatest traditional sculptors.

Download the Sculptor's Studio Brochure: Here

East wall of Sculptor's Studio objects: Here

Please click images to enlarge them.