Historical information
William FRATER (1890-1974)
Born 31 January 1890 at Ochiltree Castle, near Linlithgow, Scotland
Arrived Melbourne, Australia in September 1910
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'. Frater gave aggressive leadership to the small group of modernists in the 1920s. His example, teaching, lecturing and crusty style of polemic did much to disrupt the academic style as the arbiter of pictorial values and to pioneer a change of taste in the community.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. (L. J. Course, 'Frater, William (1890–1974)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/frater-william-6239/text10739, published first in hard copy 1981, accessed online 3 May 2016.)
Jock Frater was on of the first modern painters who opposed the fashionable and academic schools of painting. During the 1930s he exhibited with the Contemporary Art Group along with Arnold Shore and George Bell. During a very conservative period in Australian Art John Frater advanced the cause of innovation and modernism.
This item is part of the Federation University Art Collection. The Art Collection features over 2000 works and was listed as a 'Ballarat Treasure' in 2007.
Physical description
Framed seated nude study in oil on paper.
Inscriptions & markings
Lower centre in pencil "W. Frater". In lighter pencil "painted 1932"