Douglas Fryer: Mormon Artist
Douglas M. Fryer is a landscape painter, and according to one author, Fryer’s paintings are “pensive, atmospheric.”[1]
He was born in Salt Lake City and raised in Illinois and California. He started painting lessons when he was ten years old, but even before that he knew he would be a painter: he remembers his Kindergarten class watching him draw dinosaurs and his teacher pronouncing his future—“Doug is an artist!”
Fryer’s father had studied art in college before he changed his major to something more practical. Fryer studied illustration at Brigham Young University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree. He holds a master’s of fine art degree in painting and drawing, also from BYU. Although he began working in illustration as his livelihood, painting for galleries took more and more of his time until he allowed it to be his main focus.
He has taught fine art and illustration at several art schools and universities, including BYU, the University of Hartford, and The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.
Fryer and his wife live in Spring City, Utah, and have lived in rural Vermont. Fryer is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has painted for the Church magazines as well. His work is part of the renovated Church History Museum exhibit, The Heavens Are Opened. He is one of the painters known as Frank's Boys, who painted the murals in the rebuilt Nauvoo Temple under the direction of Frank Magleby. He also painted murals in the Provo City Center Temple.
He is represented by Meyer Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Howard/Mandville Gallery in Kirkland, Washington; and Principle Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia.
