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An Account of the Artist , Hugh Frazer.

Lisburn, Co.Antrim.Northern Ireland.

LANDSCAPE and PORTRAIT PAINTER .

by

Gilbert Watson.

Hugh Frazer the artist was born in Dromore , Co Down the son of Hugh Frazer and Agnes Dickson . His mother was the daughter of Joseph Dickson and Jane Colvill, a daughter of Rev. Alexander Colville MD of Dromore.

Frazer , who was the first Ulster landscape painter of note , was admitted as a pupil in the drawing school of the Dublin Society in 1812 and exhibited a sketch with the Society of Artists in Hawkins Street the following year. He began to exhibit  in the Royal Hibernian Academy . Dublin in 1826 and contributed regularly down to 1861 . During this period he resided at Dromore , Belfast or Dublin.

He was elected to an Associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy in May 1830 and became a Member in May 1837.

He lived in Belfast in 1834 and painted a " View of Belfast " taken from the Curator's house in the Botanic Garden's which was exhibited in the Commercial Newsroom , Waring Street and was subsequently advertised by the artist to be disposed of by ballot .

Frazer wrote an  " Essay on Painting " in 1825 which was printed by Alexander Mackay Jnr and published by M.Jellet, Belfast and also by James Burnside , Capel Street , Dublin .

His endeavors , in conjunction with Belfast resident artists Nicholas J. Crowley, Joseph Molloy , Samuel Hawksett , Robert Warrington , J.W. Millar . F. La Moile and the brothers William and Andrew Nicholl , were instrumental in the formation of the Belfast Association of Artists . The Association held the inaugural exhibition in 1836 in the great room of the Museum , College Square North , by permission of the Natural History Society.

Hugh Frazer had been unanimously elected President and wrote the preface to the catalogue in which the views and objectives of the Association were presented to the public.

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BATTLE'S  END