Donald Hamilton Fraser

Donald Hamilton Fraser RA (30 July 1929, London – 2 September 2009), was a British artist famed for his abstract landscape paintings.

Donald Hamilton Fraser
Born(1929-07-30)30 July 1929
Died2 September 2009(2009-09-02) (aged 80)
Henley on Thames, United Kingdom
Known forPainting, Drawing

Training and education

As an adolescent, Fraser attended the Maidenhead Grammar School in Berkshire, England. In the late 1940s, he worked at the Sunday Times as an editorial trainee while completing his National Service. From 1949 to 1952, Fraser trained at London's Saint Martin's School of Art[1] together with contemporaries including Frank Auerbach, Sandra Blow, Sheila Fell, Leon Kossoff, Jack Smith, and Joe Tilson.[2]

Career

Anthony Blunt and John Piper were among assessors that awarded Hamilton Fraser a one-year French government scholarship in Paris in 1953. Also in 1953, his premier solo exhibition was given at Gimpel Fils, London. In 1955, Fraser returned to England and for 18 months extended his artist incoming by writing for Arts Review. Between 1953 and 1971 he had nine shows at Gimpel Filts, in 1967 at the Zurich-based Gimpel-Hanover Galerie, and Fraser even got eleven shows between 1958 and 1978 at the well known New York gallery, Paul Rosenberg.[3] Carel Weight hired Fraser as a tutor at the Royal College of Art in 1958 where he continued until 1983 with fellow teachers Peter Blake and Julian Trevelyan. Fraser's students at the Royal included Patrick Caulfield, David Hockney, Ron B. Kitaj, and Thérèse Oulton.[1][2]

Art style and approach
Loose Spinnaker by Fraser in 1996

Fraser's painting style was compared to that of Nicolas de Staël[4] and characterized in the way he layered thick bright paint with a palette knife to produce a collage-like effect. The landscapes were still clearly identifiable while nonetheless forming abstract and almost dream-like fields of color. Fraser also made chalk and wash drawing of dancers that contrasted in style with his paintings and highlighted his diverse talents.

Fraser said “An artist doesn't really choose what sort of pictures he paints. He paints what is there inside him. It is a sort of imperative.”[5]

Honors and distinctions

Fraser was elected a fellow at the Royal College of Art in 1970, becoming an Honorary Fellow in 1984.[2][6] At the Royal Academy of Arts, he was also made an associate RA in 1975 and a full Royal Academician (RA) in 1985. Also at the Royal Academy, he was an Honorary Curator between 1992 and 1999, a Trustee between 1994 and 2000. From 1986 through 2000 he was a member of the Royal Fine Art Commission. He was on the council of the Artists' General Benevolent Fund starting in 1981 (as chairmen a few times in the 1980s). He was Vice-President of the Royal Overseas League beginning in 1986.[2][6]

In 1983 Fraser designed four commemorative stamps for England celebrating 14 March as Commonwealth Day for the Commonwealth of Nations.[7][8]

Fraser's work has been offered for sale in advertisements of The New York Times in 1985[9] and 1997.[10]

Personal life

Fraser was very tall.[11]

Fraser met Judith Wentworth-Shields when he attended St Martin's. They married in 1954 at the British Embassy in Paris. Together they had one daughter.

Fraser also wrote as a ballet critic.[2]

At the time of his death, Fraser had lived with his wife in pair of converted cottages at Henley-on-Thames since 1969.[12]

Writings
  • Gauguin's 'Vision after the Sermon'; Cassell, 1969
  • Dancers: ballet paintings and drawings; Phaidon Press, London 1989 ISBN 978-0-7148-2581-6

References
  1. Donald Hamilton Fraser (1969). Carel Weight RA (ed.). Gauguin's 'Vision after the Sermon'. Cassell. p. 1902. ISBN 9780304932832. Donald Hamilton Fraser – Born in 1929. Studied painting at St Martin's School of Art in London and subsequently in France. Lives and works in England. For many years he has held annual exhibitions of his painting in London with Gimpel Fils, in New York with Paul Rosenberg and Co., and in Zurich with the Gimpel-Hanover Galerie. His work is to be found in many museums and foundations in Europe and America. He has contributed art criticism to a number of periodicals and has also written on ballet. At present he teaches at the Royal College of Art.
  2. "Donald Hamilton Fraser – Bohun Gallery: contemporary British fine art". Oxfordshire, England: Bohun Gallery. Retrieved 26 May 2014. Donald Hamilton Fraser was born in 1929 and educated at Maidenhead Grammar School. He spent a short period as an editorial trainee at the Sunday Times and completed his National Service in the late 1940s.
  3. Dancers: ballet paintings and drawings. London: Phaidon Press. 1989. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-7148-2581-6. ... Academician 1985. Member of the Royal Fine Art Commission since 1986. Lives and works in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. Individual Exhibitions: Gimpel Fils Gallery, London, Nine shows 1953 to 1971; Paul Rosenberg, New York. Eleven shows 1958 to 1978; Galerie Craven, Paris 1957; Gimpel–Hanover Galerie, Zurich 1967; Bohun Gallery, Henley, England, Five shows 1977 to 1988; Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1981; Gallery Ten, London. Five shows 1980 to ...
  4. Vivien Haynorn (27 November 1966). "Joseph Hirshhorn's Mine of Modern Art: 4,000 Paintings and 1,500 Sculptures Hirshhorn's first art collection: reproductions from prudential calendars Joseph Hirshhorn's Mine Of Modern Art (Cont.)". The New York Times Magazine (Sunday). The New York Times. p. 77. ISSN 0362-4331. Before sides are taken, it is important to remember once more that the Hirshhorn art has never been seen in toto, either by the President who asked for It, the Congress who voted $15-million to house it or Sherman Lee who rejected it. We know it contains a large number of first-class works. But in some instances Hirshhorn arrived on the scene too late to get the best, as was the case with Eakins, where he had to concentrate more on drawings and personal memorabilia. As for lesser artists and unknowns, he has not taken any flyers; they tend to be "in the manner of"–Donald Hamilton Fraser, for example, who is one of England's several answers to de Staël.
  5. "Donald Hamilton Fraser | Artnet".
  6. The Times obituary
  7. "Start of Omnibus Issue for the Commonwealth". Arts and Leisure. The New York Times. 13 March 1983. p. 40. ISSN 0362-4331. The new stamps are all verticals, each in seven colors. They were designed by Donald Hamilton Fraser, a 54-year-old landscape painter and a member of the faculty of the Royal college of Art whose paintings hang in museums in Boston, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. These are his first stamp designs. The stamps were produced in photogravure by Harrison & Sons Ltd.
  8. "Commonwealth Day (1983) : Collect GB Stamps". 1983 (March 9, 1983) Commemorative – Designed by Donald Hamilton Fraser Size 30mm (h) x 41mm (v) Printed by Harrison & Sons Ltd Print Process Photogravure Number per sheet 100 Perforations 14 x 15 Gum PVA Dextrin. Stamps: 15.5p Stamp Tropical Island Tropical Island; 19.5p Stamp Desert Desert; 26p Stamp Temerate Farmland Temerate Farmland; 29p Stamp Mountain Range Mountain Range.
  9. "Display Advertisement 675". Connecticut Weekly. The New York Times. 6 October 1985. p. 24. ISSN 0362-4331. The Portfolio – Stamford's Distinctive Gallery of Art in Association with Christie's Contemporary Art October 9–26 Hockney Moore Miro "Spinnaker" Donald Hamilton Fraser A wide selection of original prints by American & European artists from $125
  10. "Classified Advertisement 58". Help Wanted. The New York Times. 30 March 1997. p. 28. ISSN 0362-4331. Tepper Galleries ... Fabulous Estates Auction Saturday, April 5th AT 10 A.M. By Order of Executors, Administrators And Heirs, Estate Properties Removed From: 880 & 930 Fifth Avenue, One East 84th Street, 799 Park Avenue, Part 2 of The Pierre Hotel, N. Y.C., And Various Other Sources. ... Art Collection Selection of Old And Modern Master Oil Paintings, Original Works On Paper, & Graphics Featuring: Oils Signed Escosuba And Donald Hamilton Fraser; A Collection of Polish School Artists Including: F. Topolski, S. Wisniewski, T. Malinowski, A. Lakhouski, And Many Others.
  11. William Packer (7 September 2009). "Obituary: Artist; Donald Hamilton Fraser; Art and design; Original painter and tutor at the Royal College of Art for 25 years". The Guardian. Donald Hamilton Fraser, who has died aged 80, was one of the most distinctive and idiosyncratic of the generation of British painters that emerged in the years following the second world war. He was no less distinctive in his physical presence, being immensely tall.
  12. "Donald Hamilton Fraser – Donald Hamilton Fraser, who died on September 2 aged 80, was one of the most successful and well-regarded young Modernist painters of the immediate postwar generation, his boldly-handled and richly-coloured semi-abstract landscapes and still-lifes establishing him as a promising exponent of the latest Ecole de Paris style". The Telegraph. 4 September 2009. For the past four decades he and his wife Judy had lived in the same pair of converted cottages at Henley-on-Thames into which they had moved in 1969.
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