For many years, in Massachusetts and more recently in her home state of Wisconsin, artist Judith Friebert has focused on depicting small, family-owned dairy farms. For Judith, agricultural landscapes have a rugged beauty, enhanced by the unique and wonderful shapes of cows in the fields and against the sky. She works as much as possible on site, utilizing charcoal and pastel on paper.
Essential to Friebert’s artistic vision is her admiration for farmers and her strong commitment to their continuing existence. She appreciates how hard they work to provide food for us amidst the challenges of survival in the increasingly corporate dairy and farming industries.

Judith Friebert (1945-), a daughter of Milwaukee artists Joseph Friebert (1908-2002) and Betsy Ritz Friebert (2010-1963) has been creating art all her life, in Massachusetts and now in her home state of Wisconsin. After working with various media, for over two decades she has focused on depicting small, family dairy farms in charcoal and pastel. As a child, she accompanied her parents on sketching trips to the countryside outside Milwaukee where they often drew at dairy farms, forming her love of the subject. That these types of farms are disappearing makes her even more passionate to depict them and she does advocacy for their survival. She also fills sketchbooks, now numbering nearly two hundred, with pencil drawings of people she sees In public spaces. These sketchbooks have been accepted into the permanent collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society. She has had one-person shows at the Cedarburg Art Museum and St. John’s on the Lake, sponsored by The Museum of Wisconsin Art. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Biographical information from the artist