Carol Hoorn Fraser

Carol Hoorn Fraser (1930–1991) was an American-born figurative artist who worked and lived for thirty years in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Biography Carol Hoorn Fraser was born on September 5, 1930, in Depression-era Superior, Wisconsin. Her father, Arvid Hoorn, was a Swedish-American Lutheran pastor who built the family home and three churches himself. Her mother, Hazel, from an English tradition, did needlework, had an M.A. in Home Economics, and supported the family after Rev. Hoorn died of cancer in 1945.

Fraser attended Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, graduating in 1951 with a major in chemistry and biology and a minor in art and literature. After a year as a research chemist at Archer Daniels Midland in St. Paul, she audited theology lectures at the University of Göttingen, Germany (1952–53), and then worked for a year as a nurse's aide in the cancer recovery ward at the University Hospital in Minneapolis.

Fraser's career as an artist spanned more than thirty years. During this time, she produced a large body of figurative work using a variety of media.

From 1964 to 1969, Fraser taught drawing part-time at the School of Architecture at the Technical University of Nova Scotia. and was Acting Director of the Dalhousie University Art Gallery for a year, curating the Fourth Dalhousie Drawing Exhibition in 1979. and some art-reviewing for ArtsAtlantic. She believed in clarity in art discourse, and practiced it herself.

Fraser died at her home in Halifax on April 3, 1991, of cancer of the lungs. A Frida Kahlo calendar was on the wall beside her bed.

Publications The Expressionist Image, exhibition catalogue with introductory essay and descriptive commentary, Mount Saint Vincent Art Gallery, 1978.

Awards

Elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, 1976. Included in Who's Who in American Art, 1977. the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia the Dalhousie University Art Gallery, Mount St Vincent Art Gallery, Halifax and elsewhere. A full list is given in her biography section in 'A Visionary Gaze; In Memoriam Carol Hoorn Fraser', Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, 1993–94.