The daughter of respected portraitist and miniaturist George Freeman, Mary Freeman Goldbeck was a poet and a talented painter in her own right, referred to as "a genius in water-color miniatures" (Rawson 103). As Anna Mary Freeman and Mary Freeman Goldbeck, she published poems in The Galaxy, Knickerbocker, Living Age and the Saturday Press. Although her relationship with the Pfaffians is uncertain, sources have described her as a friend of Ada Clare and, in her memoir, Rose Eytinge--another leader of the bohemian community--groups Goldbeck with other "beautiful and brilliant" women who congregated at Clare's home in New York City (Rawson 38, 22). Her husband appears to have been Robert Golbeck, a pianist and composer. She was married in 1859 and, two years later, she gave birth to a son, William Freeman Goldbeck (Keyes, 44).
(See also Shauna Martineau Robertson's biography, Anna Mary Freeman's Room: Women and Art in Antebellum America.)
References & Biographical Resources "Art Items." New-York Saturday Press. 22 Jan. 1859: 3. "Art Notes." The Round Table. 13 Nov. 1866: 227-28. The article mentions that Mary Freeman Goldbeck recently opened a studio above Wallecks' Theater.She is described as a painter of minatures (228). [pages:228] Eytinge, Rose. The Memories of Rose Eytinge: Being Recollections & Observations of Men, Women, and Events, during Half a Century. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1905. Describes Goldbeck as one of the "beautiful and brilliant" women who congregated at Ada Clare's home in New York City (22). [pages:22] Keyes, Wilma. George Freeman: Miniaturist 1789-1868. Storrs, CT: Mansfield Historical Society, 1980. Masten, April F. "Shake Hands? Lilly Martin Spencer and the Politics of Art." American Quarterly. 56.2 (2004). Mentions that unlike Lily Marten Spencer's controversial painting, works by other women artists, inlcuding "Miss Anna Mary Freeman's two miniatures," received no mention in a New-York Daily Tribune review of the 1854 National Academy Exhibition. [pages:383] "Miss Freeman's Readings from the Poets." New-York Saturday Press. 29 Jan. 1859: 2. This article announces the second in a series of poetry readings performed by Miss Freeman. The notice also indicates that Miss Freeman's readings would be interspersed with music by Mr. Goldbeck, the pianist. Rawson, A. L. "A Bygone Bohemia." Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly. 01 Jan. 1896: 96-107. A member of Clare's coterie of Bohemians. Rawson describes her as "...Mary Freeman, who was later Mrs. Goldbeck, a genius in water-color miniatures." [pages:103] Robertson, Shauna Martineau . Anna Mary Freeman's Room: Women and Art in Antebellum America. Brigham Young University Department of Humanities, 2004.