Frederick "Fred" Erskine Olmsted, Jr. was an American artist and scientist. He created many social realism themed murals and sculptures for the WPA, the FAP and public works in San Francisco and later abandoned his art career and became a scientist and biophysicist.
Olmsted Jr. worked in the WPA, assisting John Langley Howard and George Albert Harris in their Coit Tower murals in San Francisco, and creating his own mural on a three-foot panel called "Power" above the main entrance. He also assisted Diego Rivera with his mural at the Art Institute in San Francisco with the theme building a city. Olmsted painted a window archway called "Pottery" in the Anne Bremer Memorial Library at SFAI. In 1935, he painted a mural at SFAI named "Marble Workers" which depicted tradesmen at work in a Fishermans wharf tile shop, and at some point in history the mural was painted over. In 2013, the "Marble Workers" mural was rediscovered and by September 2019 a Save America’s Treasures grant was awarded to offset the cost of restoration of the mural. Olmsted Jr. created two large sculptures that stand 7 feet high, four foot square, and of 9 tons of granite, representing Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison for the 1939–1940 Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island. These sculptures were carved for the WPA exhibition "Art in Action". Art in Action was an exhibit of artists at work displayed for four months in the summer of 1940. When the Golden GateInternational Exposition was over, the sculptures were donated to CCSF and are currently on display at the CCSF Ocean Campus. Olmsted Jr. painted the "Theory and Science" mural located at City College of San Francisco in the science building, west entrance in 1941. In 2002, CCSF staff, students and restoration professionals restored the mural. This mural depicts a range of careers in the sciences, featuring both men and women doing things such as viewing bacteria through a microscope, conducting field research, and excavating dinosaur remains.
He taught art for a few years at Arts and Crafts in Oakland. After Barbara and he divorced, he continued to work as a sculptor, and became more interested in studying science. He later abandoned his art career and became a scientist at Yale University and later a biophysicist at the Cleveland Clinic. He designed medical equipment for the Cleveland Clinic and it was there he developed a machine to shock the diseased heart of one of dogs, a prototype for today's pacemaker. Olmsted then worked at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, designing equipment for the Oceanographic Institute. He died in Falmouth, Massachusetts on February 14, 1990 at the age of 78.
