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Natural Resources of Northern Michigan

This large (12'10" x 5'6") oil painting on canvas highlights four natural resource-based industries in Michigan's Upper Peninsula which were vital to the region and state's economic recovery during the Great Depression: mining, lumbering, tourism and agriculture. The artist's colorful and complex composition underscores respect for labor, strong democratic values, progress and the emerging urbanism of the period. In this scheme there is an important relationship between rural people who capitalize on natural resources and the modern city which uses them. The pervasive spirit is one of optimism that helped unite the region and nation during the Depression.

Iron mining, the most detailed section in the painting, is represented by views of two open pit mines and a miner, in exaggerated scale, who loads ore into a tram car which will be pulled to the surface. The ore was then taken by train to a freighter (pictured here above the miner’s right shoulder). Lumbering is represented by a lumberjack (seen on the right rolling a log); below him a crane operator loads a truck that will take logs to the sawmill.

Several features indicate tourism. Beginning in the nineteenth century and continuing for many years, Woodlands Indians presented, for the benefit of visitors, pageants, encampments, and reenactments of traditional activities. As seen in this painting, Woodland Indians often used Plains Indians’ tepees and feathered headdresses in these performances as these items appeared more “Indian” to visitors than the homes and clothing historically used by Great Lakes regional tribes. Other vacation and tourism references in the painting include the fisherman, swimmer and lodge.

Agriculture is represented by a farm (seen at right hand in the painting) that includes a typical Michigan dairy barn. Depictions of Lake Gogebic, Lake of the Clouds, rock outcroppings, two white-tailed deer, a black bear, mallards, forests and of course the Great Lakes, complete the images the artist has chosen to convey a sense of the Upper Peninsula.

The suspension bridge, seen on the right, visually and symbolically links the Upper Peninsula and its resources to the world. At the time of the painting the Mackinac Bridge had not yet been built but a plan had been proposed in 1934-35; it is likely that Carl Frezzell based his depiction on that plan.

The visionary city at the foot of the bridge includes Michigan’s State Capitol in Lansing, the U.S. Capitol and the Statue of Liberty, all icons of democracy. Modernity is generically represented by the cluster of skyscrapers and images of construction activity set within a series of arcs crossed by beacons of light in a bubble-like atmosphere.

This painting is an example of Regionalism, a representational style often featuring oversized figures and socially uplifting themes. The style, popular with the public because it often also included familiar subjects and identifiable local landmarks, was frequently used by artists hired by the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). This nationwide government program, which operated between 1935-1943, frequently hired unemployed artists to create large-scale art intended for public buildings. The FAP provided funds to the Gogebic County Courthouse, located in Bessemer, Michigan, for this mural. Frezell was paid $44/month salary for his work, which he began in May 1936 and completed in five months. Frezell’s daughter recalled that her father developed the painting’s “story” in conjunction with the County Court House, Jail and Grounds Committee. Because of his familiarity with U.P. landmarks and his firsthand experiences with working and living in this region, Frezell was able to draw from his keen observations and experiences in evoking this portrait of a time and place.

The painting no longer hangs in the courthouse, sharing the fate of many WPA works that have been moved over time. At some point, this painting found its way to the Caspian Community Center in the Upper Peninsula. With his wife Frances, Walter M. Berry ran the center before becoming director of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration in the Upper Peninsula. In the 1940s, the painting was given to the Berrys by the counties of the Upper Peninsula in appreciation of nearly 25 years of local and statewide community service. The Berrys’ daughter remembers the painting hanging in the community center, but never in her parents’ modest-sized home. Indeed, it is unusual for so large and ambitious a painting to find its way into the home of an individual. Perhaps its size and subject were factors in Berry donating the painting to the Michigan State University Museum in 1957.

Carl Hjalmer Frezell was born July 10, 1901 in Hurley, Wisconsin, located across the Montreal River from Ironwood, Michigan. His Swedish-born father was a blacksmith for the iron mines. In the mid-1920s Frezell attended commercial art classes in Chicago for approximately three months, but left because of the expense. He also took a correspondence art course from a school in Washington, D.C. In the mid-1920s he moved to Ironwood where he delivered boxes for Railway Express. Around 1937, shortly after completing “Natural Resources of Northern Michigan,” he moved back to Hurley with his wife and their children to work in the iron mines. By “feeling” the load’s weight and responding to a series of bell signals, he operated a 1,000-foot cable that raised the iron ore from the shafts. This strategically important job kept him in Hurley throughout World War II. In 1954 he and his wife moved to Detroit where he found work as a maintenance engineer for the operation of the boiler in their apartment building. During this period he finally was able to have a separate studio space. Frezell died on November 9, 1970.

There is no record of Frezell having done either other WPA work or large-scale paintings. His family owns his only other known existing paintings; these are smaller easel paintings, including family portraits, landscapes, waterscapes and floral arrangements.

Donors and Fieldworkers

Walter M. Berry

Exhibitions

Gogebic County Courthouse, Bessemer, Michigan (unknown dates); Caspian Community Center, Caspian, Michigan (unknown dates); and Michigan State University Museum (Auditorium), East Lansing, Michigan, c. 1957- ongoing [long-term installation]

Publications

Schechter, Ilene R. “Capturing Resources on Canvas,” Michigan History 85 (November/December 2001): 64-69.
See also “New Deal Art and Architecture Walking Tour” which includes mention of Frezell painting.