When Scott Fraser’s father was in his teens, he caught a bass and had it mounted. Years later it hung in his office. Today it hangs in Fraser’s studio. The pride of the young fisherman is now the pride of the artist, appearing in paintings from time to time and always reminding him of his late father.
In 1992, he painted Three Fishermen, now in the collection of Denver Art Museum. The fish, which he had first used when he was in art school, rests in the arms of a chair his grandmother owned. Hanging above it is a painting of fishermen copied by one of his father’s high school friends and given to his mother. In the painting, an electrical cord runs sinuously along the bottom emulating the lace on a lone running shoe.
Sweet Tooth, oil on panel, 22 x 39"
(Take a Seat) Levitation, oil on panel, 12 x 23"
The bass appears again in homage to his father, titled Sweet Tooth, now in an exhibition of his recent paintings at Quidley & Company Fine Art in Nantucket, Massachusetts. The levitating fish rises toward an assortment of sweets. The fish and sweets form a soft “S” curve. Fraser writes in the catalog, “I titled this painting Sweet Tooth since it reminds me of my dad who loved desserts. He also loved to fish. I think this painting would make him smile. Dad caught this bass right out front of his family’s cottage on the Fox River north of Chicago where he grew up.”
Curves and spirals are a frequent compositional factor in his paintings. “The spiral is symbolic of everything,” he says. It has occurred throughout the history of art and is found in the Golden Section. Jasper Johns used the catenary curve—the natural curve formed by a chain attached at both ends and allowed to hang naturally—in a series of paintings he first showed in 2005.
In 2009, during a five-week stay on Mt. Desert, Maine, at the invitation of Richard Estes’ Acadia Foundation, he collected objects that appeared in his 2009 painting Mt. Desert Spiral.
The current exhibition features Nantucket Spiral. Fraser comments, “I have always been fascinated by spirals. They have a visual magnetism that draws people in. I find this works particularly well with shells and their accompanying shoreline debris. The objects in this spiral were all collected from places in Nantucket when my wife and I visited the island for my solo show in 2015. We had a delightful time beachcombing and exploring the area. I am from Colorado, so anytime I visit places by the ocean, I collect shells and objects with the idea they might end up in a painting someday.”
Monkey Puzzle, oil on panel, 32 x 12"
Watch Tower, oil on panel, 14 x 10"
Nantucket Spiral contains the dried egg sacks of whelk and skate, scallop and conch shells, claws, rose hips and a knotted red cord. The objects he and his wife, Bronwyn, and their children have gathered over the years, carry the memories of their findings and the time the family has spent together. “Sometimes it’s the beauty of the object and sometimes it’s just the memory,” he says.
Early on, his children’s favorite snack, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, was a prominent feature in his paintings. They continue to appear today as in his recent painting Sinking Ship. Pepperidge Farm markets its product as “The snack that smiles back.” The viewer smiles in recognition of, perhaps, childhood memories and contemplates the snacks’ unexpected and sophisticated appearance in a work of art. In Sinking Ship, the fish escape a model ship and hurry toward a produce bag emblazoned with a reproduction of the model’s face from Georges de La Tour’s The Fortune Teller, one of Fraser’s frequent references to art history.
Emoji Toad, oil on panel, 10 x 7"
Sinking Ship, oil on panel, 28 x 43"
He had originally planned to be a lithographer but found “it’s the paint that inspires me.” He had been making landscapes until he encountered Vermeer. “The first Vermeer I saw was his Woman with a Water Pitcher at The Met. There is a clarity of color in Vermeer, a subtle sense of warm and cool. The overall blue of the painting at The Met grabs you from across the room. Other paintings don’t have that magic.
“I saw his painting, The Milkmaid, at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It was breathtaking. I spent days there. There is a basket on the wall of the painting. It’s both there and not there. If you squint, it disappears,” he continues. “I wanted that subtlety in my work but I wasn’t feeling it in my landscapes. That painting was a catalyst for me changing from the figure and landscape to still life. I could have more control over the subject matter and bring the rocks, bugs and sticks from outside into my studio.”
Bundle, oil on panel, 14 x 10"
Circle, Square, Circle, Square oil on panel, 9 x 17"
Yellow and Black, oil on panel, 9½ x 10½"
Fraser adds, “The still lifes percolate and evolve in the setups in my studio. If something isn’t working, I can scrape it out and, perhaps, change its size to make it work.”
The scope of the artists he admires is broad, from the atmosphere of Vermeer to the curves of Richard Serra. “It’s hard not to love Wayne Thiebaud—the way he uses color and gets things to vibrate,” he explains.
In the preface to a recent book on Fraser’s paintings, the eminent scholar and collector of still lifes, William H. Gerdts, wrote, “I suspect that one of the most inventive and appealing aspects of Scott’s paintings, if not the most appealing of all, is the infusion of wit—tremendously intelligent and inventive wit—as well as, of course, his profound technical ability to recreate commonplace, everyday forms in really perfect illusionism.”
Nantucket Spiral, oil on panel, 20½ x 32½"
Hanging in his studio is a framed painting of roses he did when he was 3 years old. Today his paintings hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New Britain Museum of American Art and major museums across the country. —
Scott Fraser: New Works
When: On view now
Where: Quidley & Company, 26 Main Street, Nantucket, MA 02554
Information: (508) 228-4300, www.quidleyandco.com
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