Main Title: |
William Frater : a life with colour / Dick Wittman. |
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Author: |
Wittman, Richard (Dick) Frater, William (Jock), 1890-1974.
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Imprint: |
Carlton, Vic. : Miegunyah Press, 2000 |
Collation: |
xiv, 129 p. : ill. (some col.), portraits, hbk ; 30 cm. |
Summary: |
"William 'Jock' Frater (1890-1974) was one of Australia's most prominent early Modernists. Frater is acknowledged by art historians to be the painter who introduced Post-Impressionist principles to Australia and challenged the notion that art is an imitation of nature. Today his work is found in most public galleries and many private collections throughout Australia. Born in Scotland, where he studied painting and stained-glass design, Frater was exposed to contemporary European art through his earliest training in Glasgow and during travels in Europe. In 1914 he settled permanently in Australia where, during the next twenty-five years, he established a reputation as a craftsman and stained-glass designer. Although he studied painting briefly with Max Meldrum, one of Melbourne's most outspoken Modernist painters, Frater soon developed his own technique which, influenced particularly by Cezanne, combined Meldrum's emphasis on tonal values with the use of expressionistic colour. As a teacher, lecturer and polemicist in Melbourne during the 1920s, Frater was a leader of the local Modernists. In later years he was an influential figure at the Victorian Artists' Society, of which he was a revered president for a decade from 1963. This first monograph on Frater's life and work presents original biographical research and includes 32 colour plates with appreciations. A catalogue of Frater's works held in public collections and a list of exhibitions and reviews provide an essential resource for the study of the artist's work." -- BOOK JACKET.
In a lecture on modern art in 1925, Frater stated the basic position from which the rest of his oeuvre stems: 'Copying nature is not an art; … to copy effects of light tends to destroy form and colour'. His approach in the 1930s was markedly indebted to Cézanne, especially in the portraits which predominated until his retirement from stained-glass designing in 1940. The west window of Wesley Church, Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, Frater regarded as his most significant stained-glass design. (Australian Dictionary of Biography). |
Subject: |
Frater, William (Jock), 1890-1974. Art and artists Biography Painters and painting Stained glass
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Series: |
"This is number twenty-nine in the second numbered series of the Miegunyah volumes ..."--P. [i].
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ISBN: |
0522848257 : |
Notes: |
Limited ed. of 1,000 copies printed. Bibliography: p. 122-125. Notes, index.
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