West Fraser was born in Savannah, Ga. and has been painting professionally for 40 plus years. He has advocated for traditional art since studying at the University of Georgia. His focus is primarily landscape and travel painting, specializing in what he calls “creating a portrait of place”. West’s paintings are in ten permanent museum collections and he has been honored with nine solo museum exhibitions, most recently, 2016, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, S.C., and has participated in numerous national group museum exhibits.
During the past 40 years, Fraser has been published extensively, such as features in Art and Antiques, Plein Air Magazine, The Robb Report, Charleston Magazine, Garden & Gun, Southern Living, Southern Accents, American Artist, Nautical Quarterly, Southwest Art, Fine Art Connoisseur and American Art Collector. In museum solo exhibition catalogs: Coastal Watercolors, 1986, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, S.C.; The Color of Light, 1995 Springfield Museum of Art, Ohio; As I See It, the art of West Fraser, 2007 Bakersfield Museum of Art, Bakersfield, Ca.; Charleston In My Time, Paintings of West Fraser, 2002, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, S.C., Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, S.C., Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Ga; A Native Son, 2012 Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Ga. The University of South Carolina Press has published two books on Fraser’s art; 2001 Charleston in My Time: The Paintings of West Fraser and 2016 Painting the Southern Coast: The Art of West Fraser.