Patrick Allan Fraser (born Patrick Allan; 1813 – 1890) was a Scottish painter and architect.

Biography

Allan was born in

Arbroath Arbroath () or Aberbrothock ( gd, Obar Bhrothaig ) is a former royal burgh and the largest town in the council area of Angus, Scotland, with a population of 23,902. It lies on the North Sea coast some ENE of Dundee and SSW of Aberdeen. The ...

in 1813, a son of weaving merchant Robert Allan. He began training as a solicitor but was then indentured in his grandfather's house-painting business, and was encouraged to study at the

Trustees' Academy Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...

at the end of his

apprenticeship Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a Tradesman, trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners ...

. There he met

Robert Scott Lauder Robert Scott Lauder (25 June 1803 – 21 April 1869) was a Scottish artist who described himself as a "historical painter". He was one of the original members of the Royal Scottish Academy. Life and work Lauder was born at Silvermills, Ed ...

and accompanied him to Rome in the mid-1830s. The Lauders returned to Scotland in 1838 but Fraser settled for a time in Paris, painting views of the city. He was back in Arbroath by 1839, but then settled in London.Patrick Allan Fraser
in the

Dictionary of Scottish Architects The Dictionary of Scottish Architects is a publicly available online database that provides biographical information about all architects known to have worked in Scotland between 1660 and 1980, and lists their works. Launched in 2006, it was comp ...

Allan returned to Arbroath in 1842 on the invitation of the Edinburgh publisher Cadell, who wanted him to illustrate a new edition of

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...

's ''

The Antiquary ''The Antiquary'' (1816), the third of the Waverley novels by Walter Scott, centres on the character of an antiquary: an amateur historian, archaeologist and collector of items of dubious antiquity. He is the eponymous character and for all prac ...

''; however, the edition was never published. In 1843, Allan married heiress Elizabeth Fraser and took her name. Together they remodelled

Hospitalfield House Hospitalfield House is an arts centre and historic house in Arbroath, Angus, Scotland, regarded as "one of the finest country houses in Scotland". It is believed to be "Scotland's first school of fine art" and the first art college in Britain. ...

; the scheme used mainly local craftsmen and converted an eighteenth-century barn into a gallery, added a five-storey

bartizan A bartizan (an alteration of ''bratticing''), also called a guerite, ''garita'', or ''échauguette'', or spelled bartisan, is an overhanging, wall-mounted turret projecting from the walls of late medieval and early-modern fortifications from the ...

and a large wing. In 1856 the Frasers began the renovation of the Blackcraig Castle estate in Strathardle. Patrick became an architect and supervised the renovation himself. He commissioned portraits of members of

The Clique A clique is a close social group. Clique or The Clique may also refer to: Math and computing * Clique (graph theory) ** Clique problem in computer science Business and brands * Clique (vodka), a Latvian vodka sold in the United States Entertai ...

group of English artists for Hospitalfield. After his wife's death in 1873, he built a mausoleum in her name, the Fraser Mortuary Chapel in Western Cemetery, Arbroath. The Mortuary Chapel has been a

Category A listed This is a list of Category A listed buildings in Scotland, which are among the listed buildings of the United Kingdom. For a fuller list, see the pages linked on List of listed buildings in Scotland. Key The organization of the lists in th ...

building since 1997. In 1873, he moved to Rome and was elected president of the British Academy of Arts in Rome. He died, childless, on 17 September 1890. He endowed the Patrick Allan-Fraser of Hospitalfield Trust to establish

as an art college "for the assistance and encouragement of young men not having means of their own who shall be desirous of following up one or more of the professions of painting, sculpture, carving in wood, architecture and engraving." Mortuary Chapel, Western Cemetery - geograph

Mortuary Chapel, Western Cemetery - geograph

Style

Fraser's architectural style was described in his lecture "Architecture With Special Reference to Local Buildings", which was published in ''The Building Chronicle'' issue of May 1854 as "Amateur Criticism of Architectural Works". He put great stress on building economically and morally, notions that were expounded in his 1861 work ''An Unpopular View of Our Times''.

References

External links

* *
Patrick Allan Fraser
on Dictionary of Scottish Architects {{DEFAULTSORT:Allan Fraser, Patrick 1812 births 1890 deaths 19th-century Scottish architects 19th-century Scottish painters Scottish male painters People from Arbroath Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art 19th-century Scottish male artists