Arthur Burdett Frost

Arthur Burdett Frost (1851 - 1928) Cottage in Giverny, France, circa 1910 Oil on canvas 16 1/2 x 13 1/2 Signed lower right A famous illustrator and sporting artist, Arthur B. Frost is perhaps best known for his illustrations for the Uncle Remus tales by Joel Chandler Harris, as well as for naturalistic hunting and shooting prints. Many consider him to be the best illustrator of rural America. An ardent sportsman himself, many of Frosts favorite subjects were hunting, fishing, and golfing. Often his golfing subjects tended towards humor. His scenes capture the drama of the sport - a hunter poised to shoot and a dog on point - with elements often integrated into a richly detailed woodland or marsh setting. Frost chronicled aspects of America's cultural life for over five decades. From the late 19th to the early 20th centuries, his art appeared in the many books and publications of the time, including Harper's Weekly, Scribner's, and Life magazines. Frost's illustrations always evoked the essence of a setting and its mood, whether depicting the hilarious escapades of the family cat or farm dog, or the serene pastoral lifestyle of the native northeast. His sound draftsmanship was combined with an intimate knowledge of nature. Frosts details in his pictures were very specific, as though drawn on the spot, and done in a very convincing manner. In the preface and dedication by Harris of his book Uncle Remus, Harris wrote of Frost "you have conveyed into their quaint antics the illumination of your own inimitable humor, which is as true to our sun and soil as it is to the spirit and essence of the matter. The book was mine, but now you have made it yours, both sap and pith" Other well known examples of Frosts illustrations are Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit from The Tar Baby. Frost was known to have spent time in the art colony of Rockport, on the Eastern Shore of Cape Ann, Massachusetts, where he is said to have gone because of painter Gilbert Tucker Margeson. He also summered at the noted Shinnecock Hills...

ARTHUR BURDETT FROST Harper’s Weekly Harper & Brothers New York, 1904 Hand-colored Halftone A.B. Frost, as he was to become known professionally, was born in Philadelphia in 1851. His early years were spent as a student with Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He was to go on as the primary illustrator of more than one hundred published books. Among the notable authors whose works he illustrated were Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Joel Chandler Harris, Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt, William Thackeray and others. For nearly fifty continuous years his illustrations appeared in the leading magazines, including Harper's, Scribner's, Collier's, Century, Puck and Life. His own books--Stuff & Nonsense, The Bull Calf and Other Tales, and Carlo--were recognized as masterpieces of comedy. As a painter in oil, Frost exhibited in both the United States and abroad. The unforgettable Brer Rabbit...

Designed by A. B. Frost (1851-1928) Football Match Between Yale and Princeton, November 27 Signed in the block lower right corner Woodengraving from Harper’s Weekly, December 20, 187...

Date: 1925 Medium: Graphite on Paper Dimensions: 13.00" x 20.75" Signature: Unsigned, Inscribed on the Verso By A B Frost / Priscella Frost / daughter

ARTHUR BURDETT FROST A Book of Drawings Collier and Sons New York, 1904 Hand-colored Halftone A.B. Frost, as he was to become known professionally, was born in Philadelphia...

ARTHUR BURDETT FROST Harper’s Weekly Harper & Brothers New York, 1904 Hand-colored Halftone A.B. Frost, as he was to become known professionally, was born in Philadelphia in ...

ARTHUR BURDETT FROST Harper’s Weekly Harper & Brothers New York, 1904 Hand-colored Halftone A.B. Frost, as he was to become known professionally, was born in Philadelphia in ...

ARTHUR BURDETT FROST Henry E. Howland "Golf" Scribners & Sons, 1895 Hand-colored Halftone A.B. Frost, as he was to become known professionally, was born in Philadelphia in 185...

ARTHUR BURDETT FROST Henry E. Howland article "Golf" Scribners & Sons NY, 1895 Hand-colored Halftone A.B. Frost, as he was to become known professionally, was born in Philade...

ARTHUR BURDETT FROST (1851-1928) SHOOTING PICTURES Charles Scribner's Sons Chromolithographs in color 13” x 20” New York, 1895 A.B. Frost, as he was to become known professionally, was born in Philadelphia in 1851. His early years were spent as a student with Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He was to go on as the primary illustrator of more than one hundred published books. Among the notable authors whose works he illustrated were Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Joel Chandler Harris, Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt, William Thackeray and others. For nearly fifty continuous years his illustrations appeared in the leading magazines, including Harper's, Scribner's, Collier's, Century, Puck and Life. His own books--Stuff & Nonsense, The Bull Calf and Other Tales, and Carlo--were recognized as masterpieces of comedy. As a painter in oil, Frost exhibited in both the United States and abroad. The unforgettable Brer Rabbit from Uncle Remus remains one of his more endearing images. However, it is the Shooting Pictures, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1895, that would be recognized as his most notable work. "The Shooting Pictures portfolio is a set of twelve lithographs of various hunting scenes. These prints are the most eagerly sought Frost collector's items and are very difficult to find. Fortunate indeed, is the collector-sportsman whose walls are adorned by these colorful and exciting portrayals of his favorite pastime, where Frost has captured the tense instant when the quail is about to flush under the cold moist nose of the quivering pointer, or when the ducks are suspiciously circling, getting ready to stool over the decoys of the nervous hunter whose heart is pounding as he crouches low in his blind." (Henry M. Reed, 1967.) Thereafter, Frost was firmly established as our premier sporting artist. Frost and his family lived in Convent Station, NJ, at "Moneysunk" from 1890-1906. It is during this period that Scribner's published his Shooting Pictures in 1895 and another set of six shooting pictures entitled The Day's Shooting in 1903. Frost was at the zenith of his career. In 1989, Sotheby's cataloged what was called the most valuable collection of art ever to come to auction. It was the collection of the late John T. Dorrance, Jr., former Chairman of the Campbell Soup Company and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Philadelphia Museum of Art. Included among important old masters, impressionists, European ceramics and Chinese import porcelain...