Sondra Freckelton was born in Dearborn, Michigan in 1936. She studied both art and horticulture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago.

She began her career as a sculptor working in wood and plastics, exhibiting under her married name, Sondra Beal (Freckelton and her husband, artist Jack Beal, live and work near Oneonta, New York, and in New York City).

During the early 1970's, Freckelton turned to realism in her work, as part of the movement toward a "New Realism". She began working in transparent watercolor, painting everyday objects around her home combined with flowers and other plant life, contrasting three-dimensional form and two-dimensional pattern. She had been making watercolor ...