Fred Franzen is a Toronto-based, German-born painter who has lived and worked the majority of his life in Canada. He cites his early artistic influence as coming from his grandmother who taught art in Germany, provided him with materials and gave him the opportunity to explore artistic creation. In 2000, Franzen was the Artist in Residence at the Griffis Art Centre in Connecticut. Franzen’s work is held in a number of Canadian universities including York University in Ontario and Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia.  

Fred Franzen creates works that do not fall within a specific artistic movement or context. His solo practice generally takes the form of abstract landscapes, exploring tonality and negative space with a fairly minimalist approach. However, equally significant to his practice are the collaborative art projects he produced with a number of schools in Canada and the United States of America. One such project was Wall of Withrow, a mural produced with students at Withrow Public School in Toronto. Franzen facilitated many similar projects over a period of his five-decades long career.