American, 1867 - 1949
Born in Paris to American parents, Kenneth Frazier attended Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1887. He then studied at Sir Hubert von Herkomer's art school in Bushey, England, for two years before moving on to the Académie Julian in Paris. There, from 1889 to 1893, he worked under Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, Henri-Lucien Doucet, and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre. Like many Americans then studying in the traditional Parisian academies, he was as much influenced by the pervasive enthusiasm for the new style of the Impressionists as he was by his formal Beaux-Arts training. He formed friendships with several of the more exotic figures of the city's art establishment, including Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Verlaine, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and Oscar Wilde.
Frazier returned to America in 1893 and the next year married Julianne Fish Rogers. A member of the prominent New York Fish family, she had also been an art student in Paris. They summered at her family's home in Garrison-on-Hudson and at his parents' summer home on Mount Desert Island, Maine, until 1906, when they built their own home in Garrison-on-the-Hudson, to which they moved permanently in 1924.
Frazier had been elected to the Society of American Artists the year he returned from Paris. He exhibited with the Society and at the National Academy in 1895 and showed his work at the Wunderlich Galleries, New York, in 1897 and 1899. His essential source of support in these years was magazine and book illustration. By the early 1900s he had established a career as a portraitist, although he would continue painting Impressionist-influenced landscapes and urban views.
From 1922 to 1928, Frazier was a trustee of the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, and the Brooklyn Institute. Lehigh University bestowed an honorary doctor of humane letters degree upon him in 1944. Frazier became an Associate in the Academy automatically, by virtue of his membership in the Society of American Artists at the time the two organizations merged in 1906.
ML
Frazier returned to America in 1893 and the next year married Julianne Fish Rogers. A member of the prominent New York Fish family, she had also been an art student in Paris. They summered at her family's home in Garrison-on-Hudson and at his parents' summer home on Mount Desert Island, Maine, until 1906, when they built their own home in Garrison-on-the-Hudson, to which they moved permanently in 1924.
Frazier had been elected to the Society of American Artists the year he returned from Paris. He exhibited with the Society and at the National Academy in 1895 and showed his work at the Wunderlich Galleries, New York, in 1897 and 1899. His essential source of support in these years was magazine and book illustration. By the early 1900s he had established a career as a portraitist, although he would continue painting Impressionist-influenced landscapes and urban views.
From 1922 to 1928, Frazier was a trustee of the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, and the Brooklyn Institute. Lehigh University bestowed an honorary doctor of humane letters degree upon him in 1944. Frazier became an Associate in the Academy automatically, by virtue of his membership in the Society of American Artists at the time the two organizations merged in 1906.
ML
