Idgie Says:What a beautiful coffee table book! This showed up at my door this week and immediately went to a place of honor in my living room. As I flipped through the pages I began taking mental notes of which pieces would look lovely on my walls. I adore the coastal paintings, but the small town views were actually my favorites. West does a brilliant job of making the locations in his paintings so very lifelike and welcoming. I could take this book with me on a road trip as a travelogue - following the paintings to see the locales in real life.
This book is available as a gift worthy hardback, but also is available in a more affordable paperback.
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Painting the Southern Coast
The Art of West Fraser
The beauty and spirit of coastal landscapes and waterways captured and celebrated in art.
 Painting the Southern Coast: The Art of West Fraser
is a stunning collection of the works of West Fraser, one of the
nation's most respected painters of representational art. A mastery of
his medium and the scope of work ensure his place in Southern art
history. A true son of the lowcountry, Fraser has dedicated much of his
career to capturing the lush, primordial beauty of the Southeast's
coastal regions that have been altered by man and time. The 260 works in
this book are representative of the sketches, studies, and finished
paintings he has generated over his nearly forty-year career, works that
depict coastal locales from Winyah Bay, South Carolina, to St.
Augustine, Florida, and include Charleston, Hilton Head, Savannah, and
the islands of the lowcountry through the Golden Isles of Georgia.Fraser's goal with each of his paintings is to create a portrait of what he calls "my country." He captures on canvas not only the visual beauty of the landscape, but the spirit and soul of each place. From the sultry streets of Savannah to the winding waterways and unique environs of the sea islands, the works included offer a view of the land he loves. Fraser augments his visual tour of the coast with original maps of the region and location coordinates of each painting, enhancing the viewer's knowledge and appreciation of the region as well as Fraser's artistic gift.  Painting the Southern Coast: The Art of West Fraser includes essays by Jean Stern, executive director of the Irvine Museum, and Martha R. Severens, Greenville County Museum of Art curator (1992–2010) and authority on Southern art. Fraser has also written an autobiographical essay in which he discusses the experiences and influences that have shaped his work and his life as one of America's noted landscape artists.  West Fraser
has been honored with seven solo museum exhibitions in the Midwest, the
Southeast, and California. His paintings are in nine museum
collections, including the White House Historical Association, and
numerous significant private and corporate collections nationwide. He
has been published extensively, including features in Art and
Antiques, Plein Air Magazine, Robb Report, Southern Accents, American
Artist, Nautical Quarterly, Charleston Magazine, South Carolina
Wildlife, and Sandlapper. In 2001 the University of South Carolina Press published Charleston in My Time: The Paintings of West Fraser. Fraser lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife, Helena Fox. |