Marshall Fredericks is one of Michigan's most celebrated and prolific artists. Born in Rock Island, Illinois, he graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art before traveling abroad to continue his studies in Stockholm, Sweden under the supervision of Carl Milles, whose monumental sculptures were the early inspiration for Frederick's large, public works. Following his return to the United States he taught at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, later setting up a studio in neighboring Royal Oak where he worked until his death. His work focuses on representational images of humans and animals executed in a stylized fashion with particular attention to elongated forms and contours.

Leaping Gazelle is one of twenty-eight works by Fredericks in the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park collection. The largest collection of Marshall Fredericks work is housed at The Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum on the campus of Saginaw Valley State University in Saginaw, Michigan. The Museum is dedicated to displaying hundreds of Fredericks' original plaster models, and preserving photographs, sketches, and objects related to his life's work.