Frederick Oakes Sylvester

Frederick Oakes Sylvester (October 8, 1869 – March 2, 1915) was an American art educator and artist in the Arts and Crafts movement in St. Louis, Missouri.

Biography

Frederick Oakes Sylvester was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, on October 8, 1869, the son of Charles Frederick Sylvester, a hardware dealer, and Mary Louise, who died two weeks after his birth. Kajiwara and Sylvester were friends. According to one account, their amity was "warm enough to cause them to cut wrists and mingle blood in a gesture of unity." Sylvester designed a silver watch fob for Kajiwara showing an artist and a photographer clasping hands, and carrying, on the reverse side, the statement: "No East no West, But hand in hand, Life's Unity, To Understand, T. Kajiwara, from:, F.O. Sylvester, 1909." Kajiwara did photographic work for The Great River, a book by Sylvester collecting his paintings of the Mississippi, published in 1911. Photos show the men painting together.

In 1906 Sylvester spent a period in Europe. Back from Europe, Sylvester started his second period, focused his paintings on the area around Elsah, Illinois. Elsah is a historic river town in Illinois and Sylvester owned a summer home, Oak Ledge, there which he bought in 1902. In Elsah, Sylvester tried to move beyond impressionism and the urban subjects of before towards the spiritual values of nature. In 1986, Paul O. Williams published Frederick Oakes Sylvester, The Artist's Encounter with Elsah. Frequent guest at Elsah were Kathryn E. Cherry, who succeeded Sylvester as Principia art director, and Takuma Kajiwara.

Today Frederick O. Sylvester's paintings hang in a number of institutions and private homes in the St. Louis' area.

Gallery