Robert Frame; Still-Life, Landscape Painter

Robert Frame, 75, a California painter best known for his colorful, light-filled still-life and landscape paintings. Classically trained, Frame won acclaim for his paintings early in his career. He won 22 prizes in national exhibitions between 1948 and 1965 and earned a yearlong Guggenheim Fellowship in creative painting in 1957. In the middle period of his career, he pursued abstract techniques and abstract Impressionism. “Above all,” Frame said, “a painting must be a visual adventure beyond a simple representation, a metamorphosis into the magic of art.” Frame also taught at USC, the Otis Art Institute and Santa Barbara City College. In 1975, a Times critic reviewing Frame’s work at a local gallery wrote that “his landscapes are leaner, more direct,” and concluded that it was “nice to see a mature Southland artist growing stronger.” On Dec. 6 at the home and studio he designed in Santa Barbara.