Hello!
Lydia Cooley Freeman (1906 – 1998) was the wife of the children’s book author and graphic artist Don Freeman (see www.donfreeman.info). Lydia co-authored several of Don’s children’s books (Chuggy and the Blue Caboose, Pet of the Met) and illustrated two children’s books (Onion Journey by Julia Cunningham, and Wind in My Hand by Hanako Fukuda). Lydia was a fine oil and watercolor artist on her own. She began her art studies at the University of California at Los Angeles and continued them at the Art Students League where she studied with John Sloan in the early 1930’s. In fact, Don considered Lydia to be the better artist of the two! Her work has been exhibited at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art and at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art as a one-(wo)man show.
I have created this Website in memory of my mother mainly to introduce her little-known poetry (her “haikus”) and the work she did in her late years in Switzerland.
The site is still under construction, please be patient!
There are new images under “Paintings,” and Lydia’s Haikus & Sketches is ready and waiting for your visit!