I like to paint

John :Jack" Frost (1890 - 1937)

Born: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1890 Died: Pasadena, California 1937 John Frost was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1890. His father the artist A. B. Frost was one of the major figures during the golden age of American Illustration. When the Frost family moved to France, John enrolled at the Academie Julian in Paris. He studied in the traditional atelier of the aging Jean Paul Laurens and from 1906 to 1908 he studied at the Academie Collorosi with the American Impressionist Richard E. Miller. In 1908 the Frost family moved to Giverny where John studied plein aire painting with Miller. There John meet American painters Alson Clarke and Frederick Frieseke. While working in Giverny John and his brother Arthur Jr., contracted tuberculosis. From 1912 to 1914 John was in a Swiss sanitarium before he returned to the United States. Frost moved to California in 1919. He spent time in Palm Springs, California, painting desert landscapes. In Pasadena, California where the Frost family settled, he became an successful California painter. He was a active participant in the major California Art Club exhibitions and the Pasadena Society of Artists and the Painters and Sculptors Club. Frost was a charter member of the Pasadena Society of Artists. Here in America, Frost worked in two distinct styles. Many of his works exhibit the strong influence of French Impressionism. In these soft, luminous evocations of the California landscape, form is almost dissolved into light and atmosphere. Frost’s other California works are distinctly American. These panoramic scenes of billowing clouds over the arid desert landscape are painted in a more solid masculine style. Though influenced and informed by French Impressionism, these works fit within the main currents of California painting. He won major awards in a number of exhibitions at the Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, California, and in 1924 won a Gold Medal at the Painters and Sculptors Exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science and Art. In 1927 he had a solo exhibition at the Stendahl Gallery. Frost continued to paint until shortly before his death in 1937. Information excerpted from the California Art Club, est. 1909, 91st Annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition, May 6- July 29, 2001, Edited by Elaine Adams; Jeffrey Morseburg, Author, Historic Artists’ Biographies; Pasadena Historical Museum, Pasadena, California Copyright 2001

Pasadena Society of Artists
2002 PSA 75th Annual Diamond Jubilee Exhibition, Pasadena Historical Museum, Pasadena CA
1925 April 4: 1st Annual Exhibition, Pasadena Art Institute @ Carmelita Gardens House, Pasadena, CA

California Art Club