While he may have spent his working life as a stained-glass designer, William ‘Jock’ Frater was at heart a devoted painter – remembered now as one of the most vital forces in Melbourne’s move towards modernism. Born in Scotland, he began his artistic career at the Glasgow School of Art before permanently relocating to Melbourne in 1913. Here, he took up classes at the Victorian Artists’ Society where he met fellow Scot Max Meldrum, whose tonal theories of art and interest in Post-Impressionism proved hugely influential.

Over the next decades, Frater immersed himself in the passionate modern art debate occupying Melbourne. He believed the city’s art scene was conservative and would speak publicly against then NGV Director Bernard Hall and the National Gallery School, once asserting that the “copying nature is not an art… to copy effects of light tends to destroy form and colour”.

In this 1976 oil painting, Frater’s fidelity to form and interest in the work of Post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne is clear. In a soft, bruised palette of dark reds, white, blues and purples, Frater composes an elegant still life – a jug sits beside three apples, their diverse forms all working in pictorial harmony. An artform that finds beauty, intrigue and transcendence in the everyday, the still life is an ode to looking beyond what might at first appear mundane.

A member of the influential George Bell Circle, Frater was appointed an Officer of the British Empire for his services to art in 1974, the year he died. He is represented at numerous public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Victoria. For collectors of George Bell artists, modernism or still life works, Frater is a revelation.

William FRATER (1890 - 1974)
'Still Life' 1967
oil on board
Image Size: 49 x 59 cm
Dimensions: 66 x 79 x 5 cm
Signed: Signed and dated lower right: William Frater 1967
 
Comes with Letter of Provenance
 
Condition: Very Good: Describes a work of art's image as Excellent, but may show some small signs of surrounding wear to paper or frame. There are no tears to paper margin or disruption to the paint surface.
 
(c) The Artist or Assignee