Franck, Frederick - A00066
"To stop rushing around, to sit quietly on the grass, to switch off the world and come back to the earth, to allow the eye to see a willow, a bush, a cloud, a leaf, is an unforgettable experience." (02/17/2022)
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Frederick Franck
Frederick Franck was born April 12, 1909 in Maastricht, The Netherlands – and died on June 5, 2006 in Warwick, New York. A painter, sculptor, and author of over 35 books on life, art, and transreligious thought, he was known for his interest in human spirituality.
As a boy Franck watched the First World War break out in neighboring Belgium. The streams of refugees that crossed under his bedroom window awakened in him a life long hatred of warfare. An artist by nature, his training as a dental surgeon gave him the opportunity to work with Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Lambarene (Gabon, Africa) where he set up a dental surgery clinic at the Schweitzer hospital.
Raised an agnostic in the Catholic south of Holland; a lifelong student of Zen Buddhism, he also recognized in John the XXIII a man of immense Human stature. In the dark night of the Cuban Missile Crisis he was inspired to go to Rome in 1963 to draw all the sessions of the Second Vatican Council.
Upon his return to Warwick, Franck, with his wife Claske, transformed the ruin of a watermill across the river from his Warwick NY home into Pacem in Terris - a transreligious Oasis. He dedicated it to Pope John XXIII, Albert Schweitzer and D.T. Suzuki, the Catholic pope, the Protestant doctor, the Buddhist sage he felt to be his mentors. The old mill and the grounds of the house - filled with the sculpture he referred to as 'Icons,' are open to the public during late spring through early fall. No admission is charged.
A selection of his drawings, and for Franck drawing was a meditative technique which he described in his best known book, The Zen of Seeing, can be seen in the Boyle Gallery while more paintings can be seen in the Joyful Gallery, both on the grounds.
His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Fogg Art Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
World Wisdom
This site includes Frederick Francks' biography, photos, online articles, and more.
http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/authors/Frederick-Franck.aspx
Spirituality and Practice
Resources for spiritual journeys
http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/teachers/teachers.php?id=285
New York Times
Pacem in Terris: A Retreat Dedicated to Peace and Art
By SUSAN HODARA
Published: July 7, 2006
http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/travel/escapes/07trip.html
In Celebration of Claske Franck
Audio File Click Here
Official Newsletter of Pacem in Terris-
The Shoestring - Click here
The University of Notre Dame exhibition of Frederick Franck's drawings of the Second Vatican Council, with commentary by the exhibition curator, Catherine Osborne, Ph.D.
https://collections.library.nd.edu/ed3192be75/outsider-at-the-vatican
Frederick Franck Fans on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/47143930030/
The YY Sisters in concert (but not at Pacem in Terris. Classical Armenian music.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLsciA1CpkM.
Guitarist Matthew Rohde performing in 2014. Not at Pacem in Terris....but close your eyes!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdLra7ywQ54
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Frederick Franck | |
|---|---|
| Born | 12 April 1909 |
| Died | 5 June 2006 (aged 97) Warwick, New York, United States |
| Known for | Sculpture, Painting, Drawing |
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Frederick Sigfred Franck (April 12, 1909 – June 5, 2006) was a painter, sculptor, and author of more than 30 books on Buddhism and other subjects, who was known for his interest in human spirituality. He became a United States citizen in 1945. He was a dental surgeon by trade, and worked with Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Africa from 1958 to 1961.[1]
His sculptures are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Fogg Art Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
His major creation was a sculpture garden and park adjacent to his home in Warwick, New York, which he called Pacem in Terris ("Peace on Earth"). In 1959, he and his wife, Claske Berndes Franck, purchased the six-acre property, the site of an old grist mill which had become a dumping ground, for $800.[2] They opened Pacem in Terris to the public in 1966. Dr. Franck dedicated it to Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Pope John XXIII, and the Buddhist teacher D.T. Suzuki.[3] More than 70 sculptures adorn the property, which is now operated by a nonprofit foundation.
Bibliography
[edit]- Messenger of the Heart: The Book of Angelus Silesius, with observations by the ancient Zen masters, (World Wisdom, 2005) ISBN 978-0-941532-70-9
- The Buddha Eye: An Anthology of the Kyoto School and its Contemporaries, (World Wisdom, 2004) ISBN 978-0-941532-59-4
- What Matters: Spiritual Nourishment for Head and Heart, (Skylight Paths Publishing, 2004) ISBN 978-1-59473-013-9
- Ode to the Human Face: Seeing/Molding the Human Face As Meditation, (Codhill Press, 2004) ISBN 978-1-930337-12-1
- A Passion for Seeing: On Being an Image Maker, (Codhill Press, 2003) ISBN 978-1-930337-06-0
- A Zen Book of Hours, (Codhill Press, 2003) ISBN 978-1-930337-13-8
- Seeing Venice: An Eye in Love : An Inner Travelogue With 94 Drawings, (Codhill Press, 2002) ISBN 978-1-930337-04-6
- What Does It Mean to Be Human?, (St. Martin's Griffin, 2001) ISBN 978-0-312-27101-5
- Pacem in Terris: A Love Story, (Codhill Press, 2000) ISBN 978-1-930337-02-2
- Fingers Pointing Toward the Sacred: A Twentieth Century Pilgrimage on the Eastern and Western Way, (Beacon Point Press, 1994) ISBN 978-1-56907-006-2
- Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing: Meditation in Action, (Bantam Books, 1993) ISBN 978-0-553-37146-8
- A Little Compendium on That Which Matters, (St Martins Press, 1993) ISBN 978-0-312-09327-3
- To Be Human Against All Odds: On the Reptile Still Active in Our Brain (Nanzan Studies in Religion and Culture), (Asian Humanities Pr, 1991) ISBN 978-0-89581-945-1
- Life Drawing Life: On Seeing/Drawing the Human, (Great River Books, 1989) ISBN 978-0-915556-19-9
- Echoes from the Bottomless Well, (Vintage, 1985) ISBN 978-0-394-72995-4
- Art As a Way: A Return to the Spiritual Roots, (Crossroad Publishing Company, 1981) ISBN 978-0-8245-0076-4
- EveryOne: the timeless Myth of "Everyman" reborn, (Wildwood House Ltd, 1979) ISBN 0-7045-0347-6
- The Awakened Eye, (Vintage, 1979) ISBN 978-0-394-74021-8
- An encounter with Oomoto "The great origin": A faith rooted in the ancient mysticism and the traditional arts of Japan, (Cross Currents, 1975)
- Christ Equals Buddha, (Wildwood Ho, 1974) ISBN 978-0-7045-0130-0
- Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation, (Vintage, 1973) ISBN 978-0-394-71968-9
- Simenon's Paris, (Dial Press, 1970)
- Exploding church;: From Catholicism to Catholicism, (Delacorte Press, 1968)
- My Eye is in Love: Revelations on the Act of Seeing by Drawing, (Macmillan, 1963)
- African Sketchbook, (Peter Davies, 1962)
- Days with Albert Schweitzer, (Peter Davies, 1959)
- Open Wide, Please!, (Peter Davies, 1957)
References
[edit]- ^ "Frederick Franck | Remembering Spiritual Masters | Spirituality & Practice". www.spiritualityandpractice.com. Retrieved 2021-05-07.
- ^ [1] Los Angeles Times obituary, June 19, 2006
- ^ "Pacem in Terris: A Retreat Dedicated to Peace and Art - New York Times". Archived from the original on 2011-05-02. Retrieved 2011-05-31. New York Times article about Pacem in Terris, July 7, 2006
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Frederick Franck, Who Explored Spirituality Through Art, Dies at 97
Frederick Franck, an artist and author whose sculptures, sketches, paintings and more than 30 books reflect a constant search for the core of spirituality, died on June 5 at his home in Warwick, N.Y., near a park dedicated to peace that he studded with his own works. He was 97.
The cause was congestive heart failure, his son, Lukas, said.
More than 70 of Mr. Franck's works are exhibited at Pacem in Terris, the six-acre sculpture park and meditation space that he and his wife of 46 years, Claske Berndes Franck, built. It is on the site of an old stone grist mill by the Wawayanda River, near their home 50 miles north of New York City.
His wife and his son, who lives in Chester, N.Y., are his only survivors.
Mr. Franck's spare steel, glass and wood sculptures depicting mystical motifs stand in public spaces throughout the country, including four on the streets of the struggling Central Ward of Newark, N.J. Intended to symbolize rebirth, the Newark sculptures include a large-petaled flower with a red and gold stained-glass center, and a phoenix rising from its perch.
Paintings and drawings by Mr. Franck are also in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
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Among Mr. Franck's books are "The Zen of Seeing — Seeing/Drawing as Meditation" (Alfred Knopf, 1973) and "To Be Human Against All Odds" (Asian Humanities Press, 1991).
Frederick Sigfred Franck was born on April 12, 1909, the son of a shopkeeper in Maastricht, the Netherlands. He graduated from the University of Amsterdam in 1931 and earned a degree in dental surgery from the Antwerp School of Dentistry in 1935.
Mr. Franck later told his son that as a 5-year-old, at the outset of World War I, he watched out the window of his home as German troops marched past, preceded by a stream of refugees. The war, he said, inspired a lifelong struggle to comprehend and portray human spirituality.
"It gave him a horror of war that's reflected in all of his writings and his artwork," Lukas Franck said.
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In the mid-1930's, aware of the threat posed by the rise of the Nazis, Mr. Franck moved to England, then to Scotland, where he earned another degree in dentistry, from the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh.
In 1939, he moved to the United States, where he worked as a dental surgeon at several hospitals. From 1946 to 1966, he intermittently practiced dentistry a few days a week in Manhattan.
In 1957, Mr. and Mrs. Franck traveled to Lambaréné, Gabon, where they worked with Dr. Albert Schweitzer for three years. There, Mr. Franck opened a dental clinic, though he spent much of his time sketching the jungle, people in a leper colony and Dr. Schweitzer.
His book "My Days with Albert Schweitzer" (Royal Fireworks Press, 1958) describes his stay in West Africa in words and drawings.
Three times in the early 1960's, the Francks traveled to Rome to witness the ecumenical council called by Pope John XXIII. Mr. Franck recorded the council in a portfolio of spare, realistic drawings, and the reforms of Pope John XXIII became one of Mr. Franck's seminal influences.
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Pacem in Terris is dedicated to the pope, to Dr. Schweitzer and to Daisetz T. Suzuki, who is credited by many with having introduced Zen Buddhism to the West.
In 1959, the Francks bought the site that includes the former grist mill, which had become an unofficial town dump. Over the decades, they transformed it into a sculpture garden and meditation space, which is open free of charge to the public during the summer.
Mr. Franck's books, some of them written for children, explore questions of comparative religion, spirituality as distinct from religion, and art — at times in the same volume.
In "The Zen of Seeing," for example, he argues that through meditation one can break through the perfunctory way of seeing things and focus on their essence, and that one way to do it is through drawing.
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In "To Be Human Against All Odds," Mr. Franck maintains that to become truly human, the species must overcome its reptilian and mammalian heritage. The book is based on the research of neurobiologist Paul D. MacLean.
Mr. Franck was also an editor, with Janis Roze and Richard Connolly, of "What Does it Mean to Be Human?" (St. Martin's Press, 2000); that is a collection of essays by spiritual thinkers, including the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, Oscar Arias and Vaclav Havel.
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