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Luke Frazier grew up hunting and fishing in the mountains of northern Utah. These early forays into nature instilled a kinship with the wildlife, and a passion for the outdoors. As a child he spent hours scribbling, sketching and sculpting wildlife. Later, his formal art training occurred at Utah State University, where he earned a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in painting and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in illustration.
Every year, Frazier travels through Alaska, Canada, and the American West painting and photographing animals in their environment. His love of fly fishing and hunting is apparent in his work. Influenced by the art of Winslow Homer, Edgar Payne, Bruno Liljefors, Wilhelm Kuhnert, Carl Rungius, and Bob Kuhn, Frazier appreciates the strength of drawing, color and emotion put into their pieces.
Frazier's work has often been compared to that of Carl Rungius and Bob Kuhn, noted masters of wildlife art. In a recent article in Wildlife Art, Bill Kerr, cofounder of the National Museum of Wildlife Art and a personal collector of Frazier's work, stated, "What impresses me about Luke Frazier is his potential, he's talented, he's dedicated, his work reminds me of some kind of an exotic combination of Kuhn's modernism and the classic palette of the academicians." John Geraghty, a Frazier collector and board member of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, said, "It's exciting when young artists emerge who know their material yet do not feel threatened by taking suggestions from the masters. You can tell by the way they work how serious they are, and you can see the continuing improvement in Luke's work, especially in his design. He is influenced by other greats like Kuhn and Carl Rungius, but at the same time he's his own man."
Frazier's work has been included in the book Leading the West, written by Don Hagerty, in conjunction with Southwest Art magazine, and published by Northland Press in 1997. The book profiles 100 of the best living painters and sculptors working today. He has been profiled in Art of the West, Wildlife Art, Big Sky Journal and Southwest Art. His paintings frequently appear in Field & Stream, Gray's Sporting Journal, Sporting Classics and Alaska.
Among the museums where Frazier's paintings have been exhibited are the National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, Wyoming; the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, California; the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona; the C.M. Russell Museum, Great Falls, Montana; the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery Alabama; and the Kimball Art Center, Park City, Utah.
He received the Founders Favorite Award at the Art for the Parks competition in 2002 and the Wildlife Art Award in 1994, 1996, and 1997, and has been recognized on the National Parks stamp.
In July of two thousand, Frazier was honored to join 40 other artists at "Wildlife for a New Century," an international invitational exhibit at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. Coming this February 2004, Frazier has been invited to teach a workshop, "Sporting Art and Big Game hunting" at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in conjunction with the "Art of American Arms Makers" exhibit. Luke is humbled and honored to exhibit alongside some of the most accomplished artists ever to have lived.
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