- Term
James Earle Fraser
- Alternate Term
Fraser, James Earle
- Occupation/Role
sculptor
- Nationality/Ethnicity
American
- Remarks
Earle Fraser was born in 1876, in Winona, Minnesota. His father was an engineer who worked for railroad companies as they expanded across the American West and young Fraser was exposed to the frontier life and Native Americans from early age. As a boy, Fraser began carving figures from pieces of limestone scavenged from a stone quarry close to his home near Mitchell, South Dakota . After it became apparent that he was serious about pursuing sculpture as a career he began working as an assistant to sculptor Richard Bock and attending classes at the Art Institute of Chicago at age 14. In 1895, Bock helped his assistant gain admission to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Fraser left France in 1902 and opened his own studio in New York, where he remain for next 50 years. He began teaching at the Art Students League, New York City. Fraser also developed a reputation as a numismatist, and in 1913 he created his best-known and certainly his most circulated work—the Indian Head or "Buffalo" nickel. The same year Fraser married a former student of his, Laura Gardin Fraser, who remained his partner for the rest of his life and was a highly respected sculptor in her own right.