Donald Hamilton Fraser was one of the great twentieth century British painters.
He studied at St Martin’s School of Art from 1949 to 1952 alongside Frank Auerbach, Joe Tilson, Sheila Fell and Leon Kossoff. After graduation and a period in Paris he began showing regularly not only at Gimpel Fils, but also at the prestigious Paul Rosenberg gallery in New York. In 1958 Carel Weight took him on as a tutor in the painting school at the Royal College of Art where he remained for the next 25 years teaching alongside Peter Blake and Julian Trevelyan. His pupils there included David Hockney, Patrick Caulfield, Therese Oulton and Ron Kitaj. Fraser was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Art in 1970 and an Honorary Fellow in 1984. He was Honorary Curator at the Royal Academy from 1992 to 1999, a Trustee there from 1994 to 2000 and a member of the Royal Fine Art Commission from 1986 to 2000. He has had a long association with the Oakham Gallery our previous incarnation in Bury Street selling many works through solo shows there in the 2000s. These works are sourced directly from the artist’s estate.
