Officials of the Toronto Public Library: New Toronto Branch are happy to recover a cherished wooden art sculpture of a screaming eagle by talented Canadian wood-sculptor Frederick ‘Freddie’ Kempf.
The lovely and heavy wooden artwork had been stored in a library supply room for many years until it was recently found. A new home at the New Toronto Branch, on 110 Eleventh Street, is planned for the long-lost sculpture of the screaming eagle.
“We are so very happy to have this precious sculpture returned to us and we will find it a nice home,” says Branch official Anna Carmela Mann. “Frederick Kempf was a very talented sculptor who was ahead of his time.”
The Kempf family, who had eight children, lived on Fifth Street. The elder Kempf worked as a contractor hauling stones from the mines and dragging logs from a nearby forest, according to records.
The family had emigrated from a small town near the German city of Alsace-Lorraine to Toronto and made New Toronto home when Freddie was a boy.
Frederick always carried a carving knife and at the age of seven was whittling soft-wood models of horses, birds, deer and other animals.
He, his wife Alice and son Freddie, had lots of carved animals and birds decorating their home.
Frederick, while running his late dad’s contracting company, had fashioned from tough, hard wood like maple, oak and elm statues of soaring eagles, fighting stags, replicas of famous race horses, the Blessed Virgin Mary and many others.
The artist’s fame was growing and soon he was commissioned by the Town of New Toronto to make an official reception foyer, which adjoined the council chamber on the second floor of Town Hall.
“It (table) was considered by many to be one of the most imaginative pieces of wood design in Canada,” according to one article back then.