Frederic Huntington Douglas

Frederic Huntington Douglas (born October 29, 1897 in Evergreen, Colorado; died April 23, 1956) also known as Eric Douglas. "was one of the first scholars to recognize the artistic achievements of American Indians as well as the arts of Africa and Oceania."

Douglas was the son of Charles Winfred Douglas (1867–1944), a canon in the Episcopal Church, and Josepha Williams Douglas (1860-1938), one of the first female doctors in the state of Colorado. Douglas spent his early years at his family's home in Evergreen, CO, which later became the Hiwan Homestead Museum. He had two children with wife Freda: Ann Pauline Maher (1928–1988), David Douglas (1932–1999), and Eve (Mrs. Wallace Jolivette).

He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1921 from the University of Colorado and from 1921 to 1926 studied Fine Arts at the University of Michigan and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Douglas married Freda Bendix Gillespie (1902-1979) in 1926.

From 1926 to 1929, Douglas was primarily a painter and wood carver. He and his wife, Freda, went on a trip around the world in 1928. This trip helped to develop a lifelong love of world arts, especially Japanese prints, Balinese wood carvings, and Asian textiles. Douglas collected broadly in this areas, as well as American textiles and American Indian arts.

Douglas received an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Colorado in June 1948 and the University of Colorado Recognition Metal in 1956.

Frederic H. Douglas was hired as curator of [American] Indian Art at the Denver Art Museum in 1929 and was preceded by Edgar C. McMechan who was the first curator of Indian Art at DAM beginning in 1925. He served as director of the Denver Art Museum from 1940-1942. From 1942 to 1947 he held the title of Curator of Indian Arts at DAM. He served as curator of Native Arts at the Denver Art Museum from 1947 until April 23, 1956. During this time he was joined by assistant curator, Kate Peck Kent, who went on to become "professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Denver, a research associate at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a resident scholar at the School of American Research."

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