Marshall Fredericks
American artist (1908–1998)

Marshall Maynard Fredericks (January 31, 1908 – April 4, 1998) was an American sculptor known for such works as Fountain of Eternal Life, The Spirit of Detroit, Man and the Expanding Universe Fountain, and many others.
Early life and education
Fredericks was born of Scandinavian descent in Rock Island, Illinois, on January 31, 1908. His family moved to Florida for a short time and then settled in Cleveland, where he grew up. He graduated from the Cleveland School of Art in 1930 and journeyed abroad on a fellowship to study with Carl Milles (1875–1955) in Sweden. After some months he studied in other academies and private studios in Denmark, Germany, France, and Italy, and traveled extensively in Europe and North Africa.
In 1932, Milles invited him to join the staffs of Cranbrook Academy of Art and Cranbrook and Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he taught until he enlisted in the armed forces in 1942. In 1945, Fredericks was honorably discharged from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel.
Career
In 1936, Fredericks won a competition to create the Levi L. Barbour Memorial Fountain on Belle Isle in Detroit. This was to be the first of many public monuments created by Fredericks. After World War II, the sculptor worked continuously on his numerous commissions for fountains, memorials, free-standing sculptures, reliefs, and portraits in bronze and other materials.
The public source identifies “Marshall Fredericks” as american artist (1908–1998). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Marshall, Fredericks and American.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6773587. VIAF identifies the subject as 77375764. The Library of Congress control number is n00065115. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1908, 1998, 1930 and 1875.
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This entry incorporates text from “Marshall Fredericks” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.