David Frazer

David Frazer is the Professor Emeritus of Painting, Fine Arts Division, of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and has taught at RISD since 1978. He has his BFA in painting, received from RISD in 1970, and his MA in painting, received from University of New Mexico (UNM) in  1976. He has exhibited across the United States including; Gallery at Four, in Tiverton, RI in 2021 and 2019, the Chazan Gallery, in Providence, RI in 2018, Newport Art Museum, in Newport, RI, and at the Stanford Faculty Club, at Stanford University in 2016.

In 1969-’70 as an undergraduate, he was chosen to participate in the RISD European Honors Program (EHP) Rome, Italy. During that year he travelled primarily in Italy and Holland, where he was heavily influenced by the frescoes of Giotto in Padua, and, in particular, the frescoes of Piero della Francesca in Arezzo, whose colors and combination of realism and abstraction still influence his aesthetic.

In 1978, he began teaching at Rhode Island School of Design. He was appointed to the position of Chief Critic to the RISD Rome Program, the first alumni of that program to become its’ Chief Critic and professor in residence, from 1995 to 1998.  He then returned to Rome to teach summer courses in painting and drawing at the Palazzetto Cenci Roma for the next eight years.

 In 1989 he did sponsored research at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine arts in Hangzhou, China, now the Central Academy of Art (CAA). He has had many trips to China, visits and lectures in Tianjin and Shenyang, with shows in 2014 at Beijing and Shenyang. Recent museum exhibitions in China include Hangzhou and Jinan 2017, and travelling exhibitions in Beijing, Urumqi, Karamay in 2017, and travelling exhibitions in Urumqi, Hami, and Beijing in 2018.