Joshua Freiwald

1935 - 2018

Joshua Freiwald

April 7, 1935 - May 31, 2018

Joshua Freiwald passed away May 31, 2018 at the age of 83 in his home in Winters CA. His brother Bernard Freiwald, his daughter Jessica Watt and his two granddaughters Hailey Watt and Imogen Freiwald survive him. He will be greatly missed.

Joshua grew up near the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, saying it was the greatest of place to come from. He attended the High School of Music and Art in Harlem where he dabbled in poetry, writing, painting and basketball. There he met life-long friends and began to see what the wider world had to offer. He always felt that going to Music and Art was the making of him.

From there he moved west and worked as a sheep rancher in Esparto, threw papers in Berkeley for the Chronicle out of the sunroof of his Volkswagen bug and tried his hand at furniture making. Joshua graduated from UC Berkeley, where he discovered photography and literature – becoming an avid supporter of the school.

Joshua lived most of his adult life in San Francisco, with a few years spent in Los Angeles, and was a professional architectural photographer while also documenting the world around him along with some interesting subject matter like the Cockettes and the inside of a Penitentiary in upstate New York. In the last years of his life, Joshua remade himself into a walnut farmer in Winters while also working on his writing and his photographic documentation of the changing Mission District of San Francisco.

Joshua was a loyal friend, enjoying their company over the years. His humor and well told stories were often the highlight of an evening spent drinking good red wine. He was passionate about art, literature and politics and held strong opinions about a wide variety of subjects and always enjoyed a rousing intellectual argument.

A world traveler and member of the famed Chelsea Arts Club in London – he will be remembered for his intelligence, passion, savvy and charisma.