Historical information

William (Jock) Frater (1890-1974) was an an artist and stained-glass designer who had some associations with Eltham.

Frater was born in 1890 in Linlithglow Scotland. In 1910 he arrived in Melbourne. With a passion for painting, he hadn’t been in Melbourne very long before he met Percy Leason and Richard McGann, who were both working as lithographers with Sands and McDougall who produced Melbourne Directories. Jock Frater asked them where, near Melbourne, he should go to paint, and they both replied ‘Eltham’. Frater and Percy Leason became firm friends; and with others they spent their weekends painting, at Eltham and other places. Many times, during those weekends Frater and Leason would camp the night near Bible and Pitt streets. Another favourite spot for their weekend sketching was along the Diamond Creek where Judge Book Memorial Village was later built. In 1916 Jock Frater married his wife Winifred Dow, a tailoress. They bought a house and small property on the corner of Arthur and Bible streets. They lived in Eltham for about a year, then moved to Alphington.
Jock also became a stained-glass designer. The west window of Wesley Church, Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, he regarded as his most significant design. His contribution to art in Australia was, however, as a painter who introduced Post-Impressionist principles and challenged the notion that art was an imitation of nature.
He visited Central Australia in 1950 and Port Douglas, North Queensland, in 1952. His later major exhibitions were at the Australian Galleries, Melbourne, in 1958, the Victorian Artists’ Society in 1963, and a retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1966. Frater was a revered president of the Victorian Artists’ Society from 1963 until 1972, exhibiting annually with the society during the last decade of his career and filling three galleries at his final exhibition in July 1973.
In 1974 Frater was appointed O.B.E. for his services to art. His work is represented in galleries and private collections throughout Australia as well as the Glasgow Art Gallery.
He died at his home at Alphington on 28 November 1974 and was buried in Arthurs Creek cemetery. He was survived by four sons and a daughter.


Reproduced Page 113 of "Pioneers and Painters: 100 years of the Shire of Eltham by Alan Marshall, 1971.

Significance

This photo forms part of a collection of photographs gathered by the Shire of Eltham for their centenary project book,"Pioneers and Painters: 100 years of the Shire of Eltham" by Alan Marshall (1971). The collection of over 500 images is held in partnership between Eltham District Historical Society and Yarra Plenty Regional Library (Eltham Library) and is now formally known as the 'The Shire of Eltham Pioneers Photograph Collection.'
It is significant in being the first community sourced collection representing the places and people of the Shire's first one hundred years.

Physical description

Digital image of colour print 12 x 9.5 cm. Also black and white print