Hugh Frazer (1795–1865): Belfast’s Pioneer Landscape Painter Hugh Frazer, born around 1795 in Dromore, County Down, stands as a pivotal figure in the history of Irish art and landscape painting. His life was marked by intellectual curiosity, artistic dedication, and a fervent belief in the transformative power of education—qualities that profoundly shaped his oeuvre and cemented his legacy as Belfast’s first landscape artist of note. Frazer's familial roots traced back to Alexander Colville (d. 1777), a Presbyterian minister who bravely defied synodical authority to secure installation in Dr…