Frank Morley-Fletcher

Frank Morley Fletcher (1866-1950) was a British painter and printmaker known primarily for his role in introducing Japanese colored woodcut printing as an important genre in Western art.

Fletcher was educated at the University of London followed by work at St John's Wood Art School and in the studio of Hubert Vos. He continued art studies in Paris at the at the atelier of Fernand Cormon in 1888. There his exposure to the Japanese color woodblock print led to a career in teaching and development of the subject.

He taught in London and Reading schools, and from 1907-23 was director of the Edinburgh College of Art.

He became school director of the Santa Barbara School of the Arts in 1924. Fletcher resigned as director in the spring of 1930 and eventually moved to Los Angeles where he continued to teach, paint, and exhibit.

In the late 1930s his eyesight began to fail and his output became more sporadic. He moved to Ojai in the early 1940s where he died on November 2, 1950.

He was a brother of British physiologist Walter Morley Fletcher.