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Frederick Franck’s life and work
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This site includes Frederick Franck’s biography, photos, online articles, and more.
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Born in the Netherlands in 1909, Frederick Franck began his career as an oral surgeon before moving more seriously to his artist pursuits in the 1930s. Between 1958-1961, he served as a doctor on the staff of renowned missionary and humanitarian Albert Schweitzer in Africa. In 1962 Franck was the only artist invited to draw all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council in Rome, and for his efforts he was awarded a medal by Pope John XXIII shortly before his death.
Frederick Franck's sculpture and artwork are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, and other public and private collections. He was the author of over thirty books, including The Zen of Seeing (1973), and the award-winning Pacem in Terris: A Love Story (2000), as well as an editor of What Does it Mean to be Human (2001), recently translated into Spanish and Chinese. He was recently honored with the World Citizenship Award by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands knighted him Officer of Orange-Nassau in 1994.
He died in 2006, at the age of 96. Franck said of his home, "Pacem in Terris is not tied to any particular religion, but to all… and to none. For I hope that it may speak also to those who, while shunning religious labels, share fully in the specifically human quest for meaning and for values to live by. For to be human or not to be, that is the question!"
His classic book The Buddha Eye was reissued by World Wisdom, with some new additions, in 2004. He is also the editor of The Messenger of the Heart.
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"Frederick Franck is that rarest of human beings, a true eclectic—in touch with the perennial…"
- Robert Aitken Roshi, author of Taking the Path of Zen
"Frederick Franck is one of a rare and precious breed—an authentic troubadour whose lyricism is pure in word and image. He quietly roams our materialistic world and shows us that even here, even now, there is hope for our soul."
- Jacob Needleman, author of Money and the Meaning of Life
"His words and drawings make us see the world as a place where, with more understanding and tolerance, we could all live together in harmony."
- Rhena Schweitzer Miller, daughter of Albert Schweitzer
"Franck...looks deep into the human heart and what he finds there is the priceless treasure of the sacred reality: a discovery and message so crucial to contemporary humanity."
- Georg Feuerstein, author of The Yoga Tradition
"Dialogues with the spiritual masters of the East show us the possibility of a universal ecumenism that is rarely experienced."
- Matthew Fox, author of Original Blessing
"For the pilgrim in each of us who would journey into Eastern or Western spiritual traditions to chart a path in this troubled time.…"
- Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self
"He simply sees things most people do not.…"
- Harvey Cox, author of The Secular City
"The fact that, over ninety and recovering from a near-fatal automobile accident, Franck still finds hope and beauty in the world around him and can convey it with such simple force, is perhaps the most eloquent answer of all."
- Parabola magazine
"Above all else, Franck is a bridge builder whose spirituality points to a new way of being in the twenty-first century."
- Spirituality and Health magazine
“Frederick Franck’s exploration of what it means to be human and his moving artistic expression have been transnational, transcultural and transdisciplinary.”
- Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which awarded Franck a World Citizenship Award
“Frederick Franck is an artist and author who believes in seeing everything around him… [this] does not mean simply looking at, but instead actively realizing the importance of everything around him, especially other people."
- The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution
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Books
Messenger of the Heart: The Book of Angelus Silesius, with observations by the ancient Zen masters, (World Wisdom, 2005)
The Buddha Eye: An Anthology of the Kyoto School and it's Contemporaries, (World Wisdom, 2004)
What Matters: Spiritual Nourishment for Head and Heart, (Skylight Paths Publishing, 2004)
Ode to the Human Face: Seeing/Molding the Human Face As Meditation, (Codhill Press, 2004)
A Passion for Seeing: On Being an Image Maker, (Codhill Press, 2003)
A Zen Book of Hours, (Codhill Press, 2003)
Seeing Venice: An Eye in Love : An Inner Travelogue With 94 Drawings, (Codhill Press, 2002)
What Does It Mean to Be Human?, (St. Martin's Griffin, 2001)
Pacem in Terris: A Love Story, (Codhill Press, 2000)
Fingers Pointing Toward the Sacred: A Twentieth Century Pilgrimage on the Eastern and Western Way, (Beacon Point Press, 1994)
Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing: Meditation in Action, (Bantam Books, 1993)
A Little Compendium on That Which Matters, (St Martins Press, 1993)
To Be Human Against All Odds: On the Reptile Still Active in Our Brain, (Nanzan Studies in Religion and Culture), (Asian Humanities Pr, 1991)
Life Drawing Life: On Seeing/Drawing the Human, (Great River Books, 1989)
Echoes from the Bottomless Well, (Vintage, 1985)
Art As a Way: A Return to the Spiritual Roots, (Crossroad Publishing Company, 1981)
The Awakened Eye, (Vintage, 1979)
An encounter with Oomoto "The great origin": A faith rooted in the ancient mysticism and the traditional arts of Japan, (Cross Currents, 1975)
Christ Equals Buddha, (Wildwood Ho, 1974)
Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation, (Vintage, 1973)
Simenon's Paris, (Dial Press, 1970)
Exploding church;: From Catholicism to Catholicism, (Delacorte Press, 1968)
My Eye is in Love: Revelations on the Act of Seeing by Drawing, (Macmillan, 1963)
African Sketchbok, (Peter Davies, 1962)
Days with Albert Schweitzer, (Peter Davies, 1959)
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