Donald Hamilton Fraser , painter and printmaker. Fraser attended the Maidenhead Grammar School in Berkshire, England. In the late 1940s, he worked at the Sunday Times as an editorial trainee while completing his National Service. From 1949–52, Fraser trained at London’s Saint Martin’s School of Art together with contemporaries including Frank Auerbach, Sandra Blow, Shjelia Fell, Leon Kossoff, Jack Smith and Joe Tilson.
He was awarded a one-year French government scholarship in Paris in 1953, the same year that he had his first solo exhibition at Gimpel Fils, London. In 1955, Fraser returned to England and for 18 months extended his artist incoming by writing for Arts Review. Between 1953 and 1971 he had nine shows at Gimpel Fils, in 1967 at the Zurich-based Gimpel-Hanover Galerie, and Fraser even got eleven shows between 1958 and 1978 at the well known New York galleryPaul Rosenburg. Fraser became a tutor at the Royal College of Art in 1958 where he continued until 1983. His peers were Pater Blake, and Julian Trevelyan and he taught Patrick Caulfield, David Hockney, Kitaj and T. Oulton.
Fraser was elected a fellow at the Royal College of Art in 1970, becoming an Honorary Fellow in 1984; Royal Academy of Arts he was made an associate RA in 1975 and a full Royal Academician (RA) in 1985. Also at the Royal Academy, he was an Honorary Curator between 1992 and 1999, a Trustee between 1994 and 2000. From 1986 through 2000 he was a member of the Royal Fine Art Commission.
