West Fraser was born in Savannah, Georgia, and came of age on Hilton Head Island, SC. He graduated from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Fine Art’s degree in 1979.
Fraser served for nine years as a Board Commissioner of the South Carolina Art’s Commission. He is an artist member of the Salmagundi Club, a signature member of the prestigious PAPA (Plein Air Painters of America) and a signature member of the California Art Club. Fraser has been honored with eight solo museum exhibitions in the Midwest, the Southeast, and California. His most recent exhibition titled A Native Son: Paintings of West Fraser was at the Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah Ga., in 2012. In January 2017 Fraser will had his ninth museum exhibition and third one man show at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, S.C
Fraser has been published extensively, including features in “Art and Antiques,” “Plein Air Magazine,” “The Robb Report,” “Southern Accents,” “American Artist,” “Nautical Quarterly,” “Southwest Art,” “Art and Antiques,” “Charleston Magazine,” and “Garden & Gun,” to name a few. In 2000, he represented South Carolina in the bicentennial celebration calendar published by the White House Historic Association.
In 2001, the University of South Carolina Press published the monograph “Charleston in My Time: The Paintings of West Fraser,” which was accompanied by a traveling exhibition to Southeastern museums. His second book, “Painting the Southern Coast: The Art of West Fraser,” was released by the University of South Carolina Press in July 2016. This book represents over 40 years of West’s paintings of the Southeastern seaboard starting in Georgetown, S.C. and ending in St. Augustine, Fla., also known as the ‘Georgia Bite.
Fraser's paintings are in nine museum collections and the White House Historic Society as well as numerous significant private and corporate collections nationwide.
His painting entitled Bluffton Oyster Factory Shuckers is on display on Concourse B. Reproductions of this painting are available and support The Joseph Bacon and Carolyn Bexley Fraser Sustainable Seafood Harvest Fund providing support for conservation programs that maintain the Port Royal Basin, the Calibogue Sound Basin and surrounding areas as healthy ecosystems and viable estuaries for sustainable harvest today and for the future.
For more information about the artist visit his website www.westfraserstudio.com