Don Frache

Don Frache was born in 1919 in Grand Forks, BC and moved as a youth to Lethbridge where he attended public school. He studied commercial and fine arts at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, California, having earned his tuition working as a cartoonist and illustrator for the Lethbridge Herald. After graduation, he lived in Toronto for three years, where he worked as an illustrator for the Canadian Home Journal and Liberty Magazine. While in Toronto, he took up portrait painting, which occupied a large part of his artistic efforts throughout his career. He lived and worked in the US for another three-year period, based in New Rochelle, New York before returning to Lethbridge in 1949. In 1970, Frache moved to Coaldale, Alberta where he set up a studio to devote himself full-time to painting.

Don Frache worked in all media, but was particularly fond of watercolour for his very popular images of Western Canadian landscape and rural scenery. He was well-known for his many mural commissions, including major works for such locations as Radium Hot Springs, the old Calgary airport (later saved in replica form to be installed in the new airport), and the Banff Springs Cave and Basin. Murals were also created for the Marquis Hotel in Lethbridge and the Lethbridge Country Club and for the Waterton Park Museum. His paintings were featured in a great many exhibitions and he is represented in several private and public collections.