Eric Fraser-Fashion Illustrations

“Eric Fraser has been in turn a hero, mentor, colleague and friend to many artists of our time.”

Eric Fraser was born in Westminster in 190,2, but not in a artistic household. In 1916, and while still a pupil at Westminster City School, he started attending evening classes at Westminster School of Art., under Walter Sickert. 14-year-old Fraser's first attendance at one of Sickert’s classes made an unforgettable impression on him.

“I went up with my drawing board to the top floor, entered the life class … and started work. Shortly afterwards, an elderly lady crept up and whispered to me that this was the ladies-only life class, and directed me to the gents-only life class. When I came home with a drawing of nude ladies, my parents took a dim view of this and removed me immediately. So you see Sickert hardly had a chance to exert an influence on me.”

Aged 17 Fraser won a scholarship to study at Goldsmith’s Collage New Cross in South London. Where he studied in the graphic arts department during 1919 to 1924. Whilst still a student in 1923, while still a student, he was part of an etching exhibition at the Royal Academy, Francis Marriott, headmaster of Goldsmiths at the time, later wrote of Fraser:

'He was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant students I had in the School during the 34 years I was headmaster.' 

Fig 1- Eric Fraser

When WW1 broke out in 1939, Fraser took up part time service when the Civil defence organisation was first formed, and then later become a full time raid warden in Hampton until 1945. Fraser started to take his drawing board to his warden post, despite displeasing eyes from his superiors. the demands of his civil defence work made it impossible for him to continue teaching at Camberwell. “One day, exhausted, I went to sleep in the staff room and woke up to find an air raid on, with everyone else in the basement. I gave up teaching after that’. Fraser believed this is crucial for any young artist drawing their studying years to take up as many life drawing classes as possible in order to learn the anatomy of the human figure, and so this is an example of how dedicated and seriously he took his work. He believed that a combination of memory and imagination are sufficient fir drawing human figures. Yet he did rely on references such as photographs, book illustrations and old prints for some of his illustrations.

Frasers first illustrations were published a Christmas catalogue of Kensington Store in 1923. Soon after his illustrations were being seen on the London underground posters. From here commission started flowing from companies such as GPO, Imperial Chemical Industries. The Rack Organisation, British Transport Hotels, Ealing Film Studios, several book companies and insurance companies. Fraser didn’t just illustrate for magazine he also designed trademarks, exhibition murals, coins, stamps, church windows, publishers, posters and packaging.

However, his most successful publications and most recognised work was published in the Radio Time, who he worked for, for nearly 50 years. He received a lot of fan mail form his readers, but it wasn’t always positive. They would brutally point out any slight inaccuracy in his work, ‘evidently taking it for granted that their artist is an expert on history, geography, costume, heraldry, as well as more obvious subjects like landscape and anatomy- the landscape of the human form.’

Fig 2- Eric Fraser-Radio Times cover by Eric Fraser, November 1953

Fraser lived a relatively simple life, his artwork wasn’t greatly influenced by his life experience, yet it still represented many important and relevant events of his time. “He had not travelled widely ‘with his fertile imagination and his feelings for time and space’, he has never felt the need to.” In 1935, the family settled at Hampton, where Eric Fraser lived and worked (in a studio at the end of the garden) until his death in 1983.

‘I think it is vital that an illustration should have visual impact. This is achieved by the vitality of the design, the contrasts of black anf white masses, trhe strength of line and the flowing contiutiry of lines ord edafes of masses’’.

For the most part of his career Fraser had a freedom of choice when it came to subject matter, but his favourite matter was the human figure, in particular the beauty of the human body. Fraser was attracted to the infinite range of positions and endless variety of mood that can be expressed

Fraser’s work also involves a lot of patterned and integrating shapes, in particular machinery. This is a very difficult subject matter, and unpopular among many artists as the outlines are hard and intractable unlike soft flowing lines of natural living things, such as plants, animals and people. Fraser was interested in grouping machinery like objects together creating a meaning behind their relationship. This is event in an illustration published in an issue of the Radio Times ‘The First Second’- A drama of the beginning of the end of a man’s life. This is an image of a sports car and a railway engine, which meet at a angles chosen to express a feeling of shock and suspicion.

Fig 3- BBC Radio Times - front cover for Christmas 1958 by Eric Fraser

After the war, Fraser become more serious about his work, becoming more interested in book illustrations producing illustrations

for the Folio edition of The Lord of the Rings, always adapting his technique to suit the mood of the text. Fraser said that ‘A dramatic story will require an illustration made up of bold and strongly contrasting masses, while a love story will need a gentle treatment and soft gradations of tone’.

Over time Fraser’s style evolved, Wendy Coates-Smith says it became 'tougher and more "graphic" ' as the images were competing with other visual material—including television—for space and impact.

As Fraser began working for the Radio times he started to illustrate more serious topics that related to the text. Rufus Segar who wrote in 1979 in the magazine of the Association of Illustrators commented that “…it was the engagement with the text that set him on a serious and dramatic path for illustration. Up to this time he had considered his work light and humorous, the sketches done in simple style, strong line and fractured planning”.

Fraser, unusual of the time used angles rather than curves, he distorted shapes rather handling natural shaped, which revolted against what he had been taught, and the fashion of the time. His drawings despite most of the them being in black and white were rich in detail, texture and imagination, inspired by Greek and Elizabethan artwork. His strokes were varied in length and weight of the shading lines. His coloured illustrations were less detailed but the colour added a different kind of richness and depth, which black and white cannot. Fraser often repeated a lot of his shapes, for instant his drawings if crowds are convincing as it’s not the repetition of the same individuals, his shapes are similar and present individuality but are not clones or stamps of another. Frasers humorous drawings are less complicated than his more complicated images, he simplifies his drawings and emphasizes the contrast between the masses of black and white to engage the reader and make the image easy to understand.

Fig 4- Eric Fraser

Fashion Influences

Fraser ‘Where you perceive distortion please so not take it as a sign of inability to draw, buts as a necessity to the design and interpretation of the spirit of the poem’.

Fraser’s style was influenced by numerous artists. Clive Gariner for example influenced his sense of colour and his figure composition whilst Edmund J. Sullivan inspired Fraser’s black and white technique. Sullivan was a tutor of Frasers and a line artist himself, Fraser admired him dearly and described him as ‘one of the last true Bohemians’. R. P Gossop was introduced to Fraser whilst he was still studying at Goldsmith’s College of Art by a mentor Fredrick Marriot, Gossop later became Frasers agent. They developed a useful business connection and friendship that lasted a life time which was highly creative, allowing Fraser to remain an independent freelance artist.

Most of Frasers work was dependent on pen, but large areas containing more black than white suggest the use of a ‘scrapper’ which white lines would be added on top. A ‘scrap board’ was a cheap and easy way to imitate7 a wood engraving, often used for commercial drawings, unlike wood engraving it created texture from the wood and was wider, but was seen as a cheap and as a cop-out version of wood engravings. Fraser-‘ Muach of my black and white work is based on the white line on black principle of the woodcut and us done with white poster paint and a flexible pen on black, waterproof, Indian ink’.

Fig 5- Eric Fraser- Ink and watercolour 

 Fraser's most significant magazine client was the Radio Times. However he did work for other including Vogue, Lilliput, Pall Mall, Nash's Magazine, and completed a  large amount of fashion illustrations for Harper's Bazaar from 1929 to 1937. The main purpose/ focus of fashion illustration was to make the clothes look good, and the illustrators succeeded brilliantly in this because they were unrestricted by the limitations of the human shape, unlike photographs. Fraser gave his own view of the magazine's house style: ‘Harper's Bazaar in the thirties—full of magnificent women 10 feet tall, aesthetically unreal, but beautifully created by artists who were also designers—the great era of release from Edwardian Art Nouveau—the new art phœnixed from the ashes of the late war. These women could not be produced through a lens, only we artists could evolve such creatures.

From the experience he gained at Harper's Bazaar, Fraser began teaching fashion illustration at the Berlin Reimann School.

Fig 6- Eric Fraser

From 1928 to 1940, Fraser taught at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London. He had an impressionable effect on his students as described by head teacher William Johnstone, in 1938. ‘Another splendid teacher was Eric Fraser, the brilliant graphic designer… In all the work he did, whether wood or scraper-board engravings for the Radio Times, line drawings or posters, his craftsmanship was superb. He lived his work, slept with it, woke with it, taught with it. Fraser was a bulwark in the school, although he was a very gentle, unassuming soul. Fraser would not have fought with a fly, but he was so serious and so expert at what he did that not a student spoke or even sneezed in Eric Fraser's class, they were so fascinated and so impressed by this tiny, frail, blond man.’ A clear indication that Fraser passion for art transpired to his students, inspiring a new generation of artists.

Image References

• Beard, P., Beard, P. and profile, V. (2016). More Eric Fraser. [online] Buttes-chaumont.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://buttes-chaumont.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/more-eric-fraser.html [Accessed 11 Nov. 2016]
• Flickr. (2016). Radio Times cover by Eric Fraser, November 1953. [online] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/4299563479/ [Accessed 11 Nov. 2016].
• Flickr. (2016). BBC Radio Times - front cover for Christmas 1958 by Eric Fraser. [online] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/4300648045 [Accessed 11 Nov. 2016].
• The Times. (2016). Illustrated highlights | The Times. [online] Available at: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/courtsocial/article3755873.ece [Accessed 11 Nov. 2016].
• Chrisbeetles.com. (2016). FASHION DECLARES FOR THE SUIT by ERIC FRASER - original artwork for sale | Chris Beetles. [online] Available at: http://www.chrisbeetles.com/gallery/fashion/fashion-declares-suit.html [Accessed 11 Nov. 2016].
• Phaeton.ie. (2016). Eric FRASER. [online] Available at: http://www.phaeton.ie/fraser.html [Accessed 11 Nov. 2016].

Bibliography

Books

Davis, Alec. Eric Fraser. London: Uffculme Press, 1974. Print.

Backemeyer, Sylvia and Wendy Coates-Smith. Eric Fraser. London: Lund Humphries, 1998. Print.

Website

Eric FRASER". Phaeton.ie. N.p., 2016. Web. 29 Oct. 2016.

"Illustrator Eric Fraser: Radio Times Legend – In Pictures". the Guardian. N.p., 2016. Web. 29 Oct. 2016.