Gerda E. Firant

Gerda Elisabeth Swanson Firant passed away at age 99 on August 23, 2015 in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

She was born in 1916 into a family of five children in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Her parents, Esther Ottilia and Oskar Swanson, had immigrated to the U.S. from Sweden.  Gerda grew up in Kenosha, Winthrop Harbor, Waukegon and Zion, Illinois. She graduated from Waukegon High School, and went on to receive her bachelor's and master's degrees of fine arts in painting from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Her paintings have been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the University of Chicago, the Cleveland Institute of Arts, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University in Lansing, the Miami Museum of Fine Art, the West Palm Beach Norton Gallery, the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts, Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, San Diego Fine Arts Gallery, the Denver Art Museum and others. Her work "Bell Toll" was chosen in competition for the "Painting of the Year" two-year national traveling exhibit sponsored by the Mead Corporation in 1963.  And a review and photo of her work "The Time Before Winter" was featured in the "La Revue Moderne" in Paris, France, in 1966.

She married architect Edgar Robert Firant in Chicago during World War II.  They lived in Phoenix and Chicago, and moved with their baby daughter, Laurel, to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the mid 1950s.  A resident of East Grand Rapids since 1957, Gerda showed her work regionally, including at the Hackley Art Gallery in Muskegon, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, and the Grand Rapids Art Museum, where she received their Friends of Art Purchase Award for her painting "Magic Lantern" in 1967. 

 Gerda professionally collaborated with her husband, designing stained glass windows for churches and other architectural art including a 50-foot chancel window at the Christian Catholic Church in Zion, Illinois.  She also designed stained glass windows for the following Michigan churches: Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Muskegon, Reed City United Methodist Church, Arcadia Christian Reformed Church and Ascension Lutheran Churches in Grand Rapids, Grandville United Methodist Church, and Rockford First Baptist Church. 

After her husband passed away in 1972, Gerda worked at Blodgett Memorial Medical Center in Grand Rapids with her brother, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Alfred B. Swanson, as an administrative assistant and medical illustrator for 10 years until her retirement. 

Gerda was proceeded in death by her sister Linnea Powers of Fort Gratiot, Michigan, and two brothers, Carl Thompson of Suffern, New York, and Bernard Swanson of Grass Valley, California. She is survived by her daughter, Laurel Esther Firant of Ann Arbor, Michigan and her brother, Dr. Alfred B. Swanson of East Grand Rapids. 

 A memorial service is planned. Donations in memory of Gerda Firant can be made to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Scholarship Fund online at https://www.saic.edu/forms/secure/donate/donation.php or by calling (312) 499-4190. 

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