Fredda Brilliant was born to Jewish parents in Łódź, then the Congress Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire (now Poland) in 1903, with whom she immigrated to Australia in 1924. In 1935, after moving to New York and then to Russia, she met and married film director and theatrical prodcuer, Herbert Marshall; the couple relocated to England in 1937 and continued to spend much of there lives here, between phases in India and the USA. Brilliant was a self-taught sculptor and her subjects included, most famously, Mahatma Gandhi (1968), whose portrait sculpture is sited in Tavistock Square Park, Bloomsbury, in central London; she was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and a member of the Society of Portrait Sculptors.
Sculptor and actress Fredda Brilliant was born in Łódź, in what was then the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire (now Poland) in 1903 into a Jewish family, with whom she immigrated to Australia in 1924. The family was active in Yiddish theatrical and cultural circles and, while in Melbourne, Brilliant co-founded a theatre company. Afterwards she pursued an acting career, moving to New York and then to Russia, where, in Moscow in 1935, she met and married the film director, theatrical producer and, translator, Herbert Marshall. The couple remained in Russia until 1937, then settled in London. During the Second World War Brilliant toured with a theatrical company and appeared in Robert Ardrey's 1939 anti-fascist play Thunder Rock alongside leading men of the day, Michael Redgrave and Albert Finney at The Globe theatre in London in 1947; she also worked with the Old Vic company.
Brilliant was also a self-taught sculptor and in 1946 her sculpture, portraits and models for monuments to the Resistance in Poland and France were exhibited at the Arcade Gallery in London, alongside work by Polish émigré painter, Marek Zulawski. During the 1950s and 1960s Brilliant and her husband lived in India, where she portrayed prominent personalities from the political and cultural world, including two bronze busts of Prime Minister Nehru; Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi; the President of India, Rajendra Prasad; and V. K. Krishna Menon, leader of the Indian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly. These portraits, as well as a plan for a sculpture of Mahtma Gandhi – eventually realised in 1968 and sited in Tavistock Square Park, Bloomsbury in central London – were exhibited at India House in London in 1954. In a review of an exhibition held at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai (Bombay) the following year, The Times of India praised Brilliant’s ‘command over formal organization’ which ‘enabled her to give an element of drama and nervous vitality to some of her heads’ (The Times of India 1955, p. 5). In the same year Brilliant participated in a show under the auspices of the left-wing A.I.A. (Artists International Association, 1955) and the Jewish Chronicle noted her sculpture of Sir John Rothenstein, former Director of the Tate Gallery from the noted Anglo-Jewish Rothenstein dynasty (Jewish Chronicle, 9 December 1955, p. 12). During the 1950s and 1960s Brilliant also showed her sculpture with Ben Uri on several occasions, including in the Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Jewish Artists, (1954), Sculpture by Fredda Brilliant, Georg Ehrlich, Jacob Epstein, Lippy Lipshitz, Abraham Lozoff, Karel Vogel in 1955, and in the Opening Exhibition for Ben Uri's Berners Street premises in 1961. In 1976 she exhibited with Campbell and Franks, a gallery which had a history of showing émigré artists from the so-called Continental British School. In 1977, her bronze head of Menon was unveiled in Fitzroy Square, London.
In 1966, Marshall accepted a professorship in Soviet and East European studies at the University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale, Illinois. The couple spent their remaining years living between the USA and Sussex, England. Brilliant continued to sculpt into the 1970s, Peter Stone in the Jewish Chronicle noting her large-scale portrait of Duncan Grant at 90 which she completed the previous year (Jewish Chronicle, 3 December 1976, p. 12). Brilliant also wrote a number of works: Biographies in Bronze (1986), a catalogue of her surviving works; The Black Virgin (1986), a novel; a selection of stories Truth in Fiction (1986) and Women in Power (1987), a series of interviews with political leaders. She was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and a member of the Society of Portrait Sculptors. Fredda Brilliant died in Carbondale, USA in 1999. In 2019, the contents of her studio, which included the maquette for the Gandhi sculpture, as well as other maquettes and finished bronzes of other leading Indian politicians, was sold at Woolley & Wallis auction house in Salisbury. Although her work is not currently represented in UK public collections, the National Portrait Gallery in London holds a photograph of her sculpting Sir Isaac James Hayward, then Leader of the London County Council.
Fredda Brilliant in the Ben Uri collection
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Fredda Brilliant]
Publications related to [Fredda Brilliant] in the Ben Uri Library