Biography

Born 1953 Cardiff, Wales, Peter Fraser attended schools in Cardiff, Glamorgan and the Rhondda Valley. He acquired his first camera at the age of 7, and after a false start studying Civil Engineering, at 18, began studying photography at Manchester Polytechnic the following year. In the summer of 1974 he lived in New York and worked at the Laurel Photography Bookstore at 32nd St and 6th Avenue which significantly expanded his sense of photography’s expressive possibilities. He graduated in 1976 after repeating his 3rd year due to major illness crossing the Sahara, while photographing in West Africa.

Fraser lived in Holland and Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, before moving back to Manchester in 1981. He then began working with a Plaubel Makina camera in 1982 which led to an exhibition with William Eggleston at the Arnolfini, Bristol in 1984, and a move to that city. In summer 1984 Fraser travelled to Memphis, USA to spend nearly two months with William Eggleston which confirmed for him the desire to commit his life to working with colour photography.

He then worked on several series of photographs, leading to a first publication, Two Blue Buckets (which featured work from 12 Day Journey, The Valleys Project, Everyday Icons and Towards an Absolute Zero) which won the Bill Brandt Prize in London (the precursor of the CitiBank International Photography Prize), in 1988.

He moved to London in 1990, subsequently publishing several new bodies of work, including Ice and Water 1993, Deep Blue 1997, Material 2002, and Peter Fraser (Nazraeli Press) 2006.

In 2002, The Photographers’ Gallery, London, staged a 20 year survey exhibition of Fraser’s work, and he was shortlisted for the Citigroup International Photography Prize in 2004. In 2006 he was invited to be an Artist in Residence at Oxford University, England and produced new work for permanent installation in their new Biochemistry building in 2008.

In 2009 Fraser was given a major commission by The Ffotogallery, Wales, to return to his country of birth, to make new work for a solo exhibition at the gallery, which opened in March 2010, with a new publication, Lost For Words.

In 2008 Fraser began working on A City In The Mind, a new series of photographs in London, which was shown at Brancolini Grimaldi Gallery, London in May 2012 accompanied by a Steidl publication.

From January to May 2013, Tate St Ives held a retrospective of Fraser’s career, the first Tate Retrospective for a living British Photographer, and Tate published a major monograph on the whole of Fraser’s career with a text by David Chandler. Tate purchased 10 works for their permanent collection from the Two Blue Buckets series in 2014.

In 2014 Fraser was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society, UK.

In spring 2017 Peperoni Books, Berlin, published a new ‘Director’s Cut’ of Fraser’s 1988 publication Two Blue Buckets with 19 missing images from the original, and a new essay by Gerry Badger and a discussion between Fraser and David Campany.

From 1st June to 31st July 2017 Fraser’s exhibition Mathematics was exhibited at the Real Jardin de Botanico, Madrid, part of PhotoEspana 17 and Skinnerboox, Italy, published Mathematics with 52 colour plates, and essays by Mark Durden, David Campany and an afterword by Fraser.

The first UK exhibition of Mathematics opened at Camden Arts Centre, London on the 5th July, and ran to 16th September 2018. The accompanying File Note no 120 published by the gallery featured a specially commissioned essay The Things That Count by Amy Sherlock, Deputy Editor of Frieze.

In March 2021 Fraser received a Pollock Krasner Foundation Award, NY, to support the production of new work in the UK and across Europe, which draws energy from an increasing apprehension for the future particularly focused on the complex possible outcomes of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In 2022 Fraser self published Peter Fraser: The Arnolfini Works 1984 which features the 22 works shown in a two person exhibition with a selection of William Eggleston Dye Transfers at Arnolfini, Bristol, UK, in that year. These works had not been seen or published since 1984.

The clothbound hardback was released in an edition of 15, and includes a conversation with Ann Gallagher OBE, Director of Collections, British Art at Tate. Six of these works are included in the exhibition The 80s: Photographing Britain, which opened at Tate Britain in November 2024.