96-Year-Old Patient and Artist Donates Paintings to Scheie

By Rebecca Salowe

Scheie Vision Annual Report 2020

 

Hilda Friedman, 96-year-old visual artist, is a longtime patient of the Scheie Eye Institute. Recently, she donated three large paintings to be displayed in waiting areas at the Institute.

 

A Philadelphia native, Hilda grew up in a row house in South Philadelphia with her parents and three older sisters. As a child, she loved to draw (especially her grandmother’s cat), but her family did not have the money to provide her with art training. “My father was a nature lover and taught me a lot,” she recalled. “My mother was artistic, but it was the Depression years.”

 

Hilda attended South Philly High School and obtained her BA on a scholarship from Hobart and William Smith College. She married young to her late husband, Eli Friedman, who was a pharmacist. At the time, married women were not allowed to live in the school dormitories, so Hilda and her husband rented a small apartment.

 

When Hilda first took up art in the 1950s, not many people in her family took her interest seriously—but she was not deterred. She went on to study drawing at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, which led to the watercolor phase of her work. “I was very interested in color at that time,” she explained. “It was just becoming big in cinematography and films. I came into contact with every face of printmaking and color.”

 

When she reflects on the watercolor phase of her work today, Hilda marvels at the vast size of these pieces. “I used to do watercolors that were 40 by 60 inches,” she said. “I mean, you have to be crazy to do a watercolor that size. How did I do that? It just came from within.”

 

Hilda also pursued education in lithography and printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, silkscreening at the Fabric Workshop, and art history at the Barnes Foundation.

 

During this time, Hilda taught classes at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Wayne Art Center, and St. Joseph's University. “They sent kids to me thinking that I can make them into artists, but it doesn’t work like that,” she said. “So I tried to get the children interested in work other than just the prints of their fingers.”

 

In the 1970s, Hilda experienced a sudden loss of half of her field of vision. After learning that she had melanoma in her right eye, her nephew researched the condition. She came to Scheie for further evaluation. While under the care of Dr. Harold Scheie and Dr. William Frayer, she learned that she needed to have the eye enucleated.

 

Hilda describes her persistence and positivity as being key to returning to art after the surgery. “People say it was very relaxing for you—it’s not,” she said. “But it's good to keep your brain connected. The work is a metaphor for my life. In other words, it comes from inside.”

 

The later phases of her work focused on metal. Hilda, having recently lost her husband, describes this phase as a response to her grief. “I was really a reactor,” she said. “In Mexico in the church, they use metal to express their grief. So I began to explore how the elements of color that I learned about in my watercolor phase related to different kinds of metal.” She remembers being drawn to how she had to “look” for the subject and the “cryptic” feeling of the work.

 

Hilda maintains a website filled with images of her watercolor and acrylic collection and engraved steel and plexiglass collection. Today, her work is in a phase of wood, which often creates interesting logistical challenges. “I’m not quite sure what I’ve done,” she said. “I’m not a very large person and not too young, so I had to work on a flat table.”

 

Hilda is still a patient of the Scheie Eye Institute, most recently seeing Mina Massaro, MD. The two have formed a strong bond. Before the pandemic, Dr. Massaro and her daughter even visited Hilda’s studio. “Mrs. Friedman is an inspiration to me,” said Dr. Massaro. “She sees beauty in everything. I’m fortunate to have developed a bond that goes beyond the traditional doctor-patient relationship.”

 

Recently, Hilda donated three large paintings to be displayed at Scheie, which now hang in the second floor waiting room. At one of her recent appointments, she was waiting to be examined, when somebody pointed out to other patients that she was the artist of the pieces on the wall. “The patients were reacting and giving me ideas, and I was so happy,” she said. Another one of her wood paintings is in the process of being donated to Scheie.

 

The rest of Hilda’s work is displayed around the world, including at the Dancing Grounds (New Orleans) and at her granddaughter’s dance studio.

 

Hilda lives in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania in the same home that she has lived in since the 1950s. She has two daughters, three grandsons, twin granddaughters, and six great-grandchildren. Outside of painting, her hobbies include listening to opera, reading poetry, and maintaining her yard filled with plants. She is still active in her studio, working on her wood phase.

 

Hilda’s work is available for sale or placement in galleries and museums. Her work can be viewed at http://hildafriedman.com/.

 

The most recent phase of Hilda’s art centers around wood.