Dorothy Fratt American, 1923-2017

Dorothy Fratt created inventive abstract paintings across her prolific career, most notably recognized as a master of color theory and expression. Influenced by the onset of Color Field movement as well as the natural influences of Arizona’s desert vistas, she produced bright, landscape-like projections of abstractionism. Her stark canvases, typically embalmed in a sole, vivid hue, are adorned with scribbles, marks, and other gestural forms that are seemingly illegible upon first glance. This disruption invokes a perfunctory effect on the viewer, prompting them to more intimately explore its obscurities. In contrast to typical perceptions of Color Field abstraction, her works are not visually expansive, but rather confined by the markings surrounding the frame. Fratt’s distinctive style secures her legacy as a prominent figure in both the Washington Color School and the overarching Color Field Movement.

Dorothy Fratt (1923-2017) received numerous scholarships to study at D.C. area art schools, including Mount Vernon College, the Corcoran School of Art, and the Phillips Memorial Gallery Art School (now the Phillips Collection). Despite working in Washington, D.C., at the time in which the Washington Color School was rapidly gaining momentum, she ultimately moved to Phoenix, Arizona, developing her style independently. Fratt has exhibited throughout the United States, her first solo show being at the Washington City Library in 1946. Since then, she has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, with a major mid-career retrospective, Dorothy Fratt: 1970-1980, displayed at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts (1980). She has additionally been showcased at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the California Palace of the Legion Honor in San Francisco, CA; Yares Gallery in AZ, NM, NY; the Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Springs, CA; and the Phoenix Art Museum in Phoenix, AZ. A major retrospective of her work was exhibited at the Scottsdale Museum of Art in 2024. Since 2022, PFA has worked in collaboration with the artist’s estate. Her work was subsequently featured in the 2022 solo exhibition, Dorothy Fratt: Paint the Town Red at PFA-Kensington. 

The artist’s work is held the permanent collections of numerous private and public institutions, including the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, AZ; Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ; Hilliard Art Museum, Lafayette, LA; Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA; Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Städtische Galerie, Paderborn, Germany; and Museum Art Plus, Donaueschigen, Germany. In 2023, a monograph, Dorothy Fratt: Works, was published by Radius Books and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in conjunction with the museum’s 2024 retrospective, Dorothy Fratt: Color Mirage.