Burton Frasher (July 25, 1888 – April 24, 1955) was an American photographer and publisher of

mid-century modern Mid-century modern (MCM) is a movement in interior design, product design, graphic design, architecture and urban development that was present in all the world, but more popular in North America, Brazil and Europe from roughly 1945 to 197 ...

ephemera. His black-and-white landscape photographs of the American West have been widely reproduced.

Career

After years of traveling while working in the fruit packing industry, he and his wife Josephine opened a photo shop in

La Verne, California La Verne is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 31,334 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History The area was home to Native Americans. The European history of the area dates back to the ...

in 1914. Six years later they moved to Pomona where he expanded his studio by publishing postcards. Frasher went to great lengths to find images for his real photo postcards. He traveled extensively through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, ranging up through Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, and down through Baja California region and Sonora, Mexico, taking pictures during a time these locations were still largely inaccessible by road. The photographers most famously associated with the American West are

Edward Weston Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was an American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers" and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course ...

and

Ansel Adams Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his Monochrome photography, black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association ...

. Whereas Weston and Adams treated the landscape as a canvas for formal artistic exploration, Frasher sought to capture the scenic wonders. He included the distant vista, the trail of footsteps, and the occasional human being, all devices to keep monumentality in scale. In contrast, Weston focused on geologic forms and the textures of sand and sky, creating abstract compositions in which distances are utterly ambiguous. It is a measure of their separate achievements that the 1939 Works Project Administration's Death Valley: A Guide reproduces images by both photographers. During the Depression and pre-WWII years he reproduced his images as printed linens manufactured by

Curt Teich Curt Otto Teich (March 1877 – 1974) was an American Printer (publisher), publisher of German descent who produced popular color postcards, primarily of scenes from American life. He was a pioneer of the offset printing process. Under his manage ...

, allowing national distribution. In 1948, over 3 1/2 million "Frasher Fotos" postcards were sold nationwide. Curt Teich was the most prominent and largest printer and publisher of Linen Type postcards, based in Chicago. Burton Frasher was one of the most prominent card publishers on the West Coast. Curt Teich printed most of the Linen Type postcards for Piltz utilizing Teich's "C.T. Art-Colortone" printing method. Other publishers in California include

Stanley Piltz Stanley A. Piltz (November 24, 1887 – January 16, 1973) was an American photographer and publisher of Mid-Century Modern graphic design and printed ephemera. Stanley A. Piltz Company, San Francisco, issued many Linen Type postcards from the 1930 ...

in San Francisco,

Western Publishing and Novelty Company Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

, Tichnor Art Company in Los Angeles, B. W. White in Monterey and Stephen H. Willard in Palm Springs. Frasher looked closely at the developing urban landscape of the American West with a particular concentration on the cities of

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

and

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. Frasher's photographs detail the automobile's profound impact on the architecture of these two cities. His extensive archive of night photographs of Las Vegas and Los Angeles explores an urban world designed for observation and navigation from behind the wheel of a slow moving motor vehicle. He combined a passion for automobile travel and photography into a postcard business that proved popular with motoring tourists of the 1930s and 1940s. Frasher's photographs are a fascinating visual resource of a dynamic period in the history of modern California and the West.Burton Frasher's California Route 66. Retrieved March 17, 2014

References

External links

Frasher Foto Collection

Wishing You Were Here: Frasher Fotos and the American West 1920-1950

to Frasher Foto Postcard Collection

San Francisco Bay Area Post Card Club

Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City

Curt Teich Postcard Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frasher, Burton 1888 births 1955 deaths 20th-century American photographers People from Aurora, Colorado Photographers from Colorado