West Fraser of Charleston, SC, to Have Exhibition at Telfair Museums in Savannah, GA
Telfair Museums in Savannah, GA, will present the exhibit, A Native Son: Paintings by West Fraser, at the Telfair Academy from Feb. 24 through May 6, 2012. Despite coming of age at a time when modernism and abstraction had achieved a firm hold on the prevailing modes of art instruction throughout the country, West Fraser has remained a traditionalist, earning a place among the region’s leading practitioners of traditional realism. Fraser was born in Savannah in 1955 and has spent most of the past three decades working in the South Carolina Lowcountry and coastal Georgia. He is particularly well known for his luminous landscapes (many, though not all, of which are painted en plein air) and engaging city scenes.
A Native Son: Paintings by West Fraser considers the landscapes, marine views, and city scenes for which Fraser is best known, as well as travel paintings created around the world and figure-based compositions depicting family, friends, and the artist himself. Consisting of approximately 55 works, the exhibition also demonstrates the evolution of Fraser’s technique, beginning with his large-scale watercolors of the 1980s, which were painted from photographs in the artist’s studio. In the 1990s, his desire to begin painting directly from nature forced him to seek out a more flexible and adaptable medium, resulting in his switch from watercolor to oil. Today, Fraser continues to work in oil, and alternates between plein air painting and studio work (sometimes combining the two).
Fraser’s paintings have been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows at museums and galleries throughout the country, and his work is held in the permanent collection of Telfair Museums, Morris Museum of Art, Gibbes Museum of Art, Greenville County Museum of Art, California’s Laguna Art Museum, and many prominent private and corporate collections.
Cathy Solomons, interim director of Telfair Museums, stated, “It is with special pleasure that Telfair Museums presents this exhibition. Although West Fraser has garnered national recognition and numerous awards, this exhibition is his first solo museum show in Savannah, the city of his birth.” Courtney McNeil, curator of art at Telfair Museums, stated, “West Fraser has spent nearly thirty years methodically chronicling lives and landscapes in the South. Because his stylistic inspiration is largely drawn from the work of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American impressionists such as John Henry Twachtman, Childe Hassam, and Edward Redfield, all of whom are represented in the Telfair’s permanent collection, it is particularly appropriate for the Telfair to be presenting this exhibition.”
This exhibition is sponsored by Byck Rothchild Foundation, Inc, Wells Fargo Bank N.A., Mr. and Mrs. J. Curtis Lewis III, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Ramee, and Mr. and Mrs. David W. Solana.
Located in the heart of Savannah’s historic district, the Telfair is the oldest public art museum in the South. It encompasses two National Historic Landmark Buildings – the Telfair Academy and the Owens-Thomas House – and the contemporary Jepson Center. With three unique buildings housing three distinct collections, Telfair Museums bridges three centuries of art and architecture.
For further information call the Museums at 912/790-8800 or visit (www.telfair.org).
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