California painter Frederick M. Perl was born in Germany in 1887, and studied architecture at the University of Dusseldorf.

He worked as an architect in Germany, but fled to New York in America in 1938.

In New York he did modern interior design work and began painting. Traveling widely, he moved permanently to Santa Barbara, California in 1959 because of failing health. There he executed a series of large abstract paintings that many consider to be his best work.

He had one man shows at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Long Beach Museum of Art. He died in 1983.