A. B. Frost

Frost was born January 17, 1851, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the eldest of ten children. His father, John Frost, was a historian, biographer and literature professor.{{cite web |title=A.B. Frost Lambiek Comiclopedia |url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/f/frost_ab.htm |website=www.lambiek.net |access-date=14 November 2021}} At the age of fifteen, he worked as an intern at a local business that taught him engraving and lithography.{{cite book |last1=Frost |first1=John Eldridge |title=The Nicholas Frost Family |date=1943 |publisher=The Cabinet Press |location=Milford, New Hampshire |pages=90–91 |isbn=9780608319032 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OIBMAAAAMAAJ |access-date=11 November 2021}} He was mostly self taught but did study under Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, with Gilbert Tucker Margeson in Massachusetts and with William Merritt Chase at the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art.{{cite web |last1=Pfohl |first1=Bailey |title=Arthur Burdett "A.B." Frost |url=https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/arthur-burdett-ab-frost |website=www.illustrationhistory.org |access-date=31 October 2021}} In 1874 he was asked by a friend to illustrate a book of humorous short stories, "Out of the Hurly Burly", by Charles Heber Clark, which was a commercial success and launched his illustration career.{{cite web |last1=Polucha |first1=Laura |title=Illustrator Profile: Arthur Burdett Frost |url=https://www.swanngalleries.com/news/illustration-art/2021/01/illustrator-profile-arthur-burdett-frost/ |website=www.swanngalleries.com |date=25 January 2021 |access-date=10 November 2021}}

In 1875, he worked at The Daily Graphic. In 1876, Frost joined the art department at the publisher Harper & Brothers, where he worked with well-known illustrators including Howard Pyle, E. W. Kemble, Frederic Remington and C. S. Reinhart. He published illustrations in other magazines such as Harper's Weekly, Punch and Scribner's. While there, he learned a wide variety of techniques, from cartooning to what later came to be called photorealistic painting. He moved to London in 1877 to study art and work. He was one of the first American illustrators to have success in England when he worked on illustrations for Mark Twain and Charles Dickens.{{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Morten N |last2=Wakeling |first2=Edward |title=Lewis Carroll and His Illustrators |date=2003 |publisher=Cornell University Press |location=Ithaca, New York |isbn=0-8014-4148-X |page=37 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2bNKSUwe2S4C |access-date=13 November 2021}} He returned to Philadelphia and studied under painters Thomas Eakins and William Merritt Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.{{cite book |last1=Smolderen |first1=Thierry |title=The Origins of Comics: From William Hogarth to Winsor McKay |date=2000 |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |isbn=978-1-61703-149-6 |page=122 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9_UaBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA122 |access-date=11 November 2021}}

In 1892, Frost partnered with Joel Chandler Harris and included his drawings of Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit and other characters into the book Uncle Remus and His Friend.{{cite book |last1=Duke |first1=Sara |title=Biographical Sketches of Cartoonists & Illustrators in the Swann Collection of the Library of Congress |date=2012 |publisher=lulu.com |location=Arlington, VA |page=118 |isbn=9781304858887 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wW1rBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA118 |access-date=14 November 2021}} Frost and Harris published several additional versions of the Uncle Remus books including Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings in 1895 and 1898.

Frost was influenced by the serial photography work of Eadward Muybridge and translated his photographic approach to create successive illustration panels and dialogue which was a pioneering form of comic strips and comic books. In 1884, Frost published Stuff and Nonsense, an anthology of his works that advanced the concept of time-stop drawings and contained other innovations. Although he was never published in newspapers, Frost's work was influential on newspaper comic strip illustrators such as Rudolph Dirks and Jimmy Swinnerton.

Frost incorporated his interest in hunting, shooting and golf into multiple illustrations and publications. He was an avid golfer and a member of the Morris County Golf Club in Morristown, New Jersey, during the initial uptake of the sport in the United States. His sketches of golf players focused on the drama and passion of the players set in detailed backgrounds. His golf illustrations were included in The Golfer's Alphabet (1898), The Epic of Golf (1923) and on two covers of Collier's magazine.

He was a member of the Philadelphia Sketch Club, the Society of Independent Artists and the Society of Illustrators.

File:A.B. Frost tombstone.jpg]]

Frost married another artist, illustrator Emily Louise Phillips, in 1883.Census and other records, Jesup/Stifler Family Tree (Ancestry.com). He lived at Boisaubin Manor in Convent Station, New Jersey until 1908. From 1908 until May 1916, Frost and his family lived in Paris to allow his children to study art. After his return to the United States, he lived in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and worked as an illustrator and comics artist, mainly for Life magazine. In 1924, Frost moved to Pasadena, California and died there on June 22, 1928.{{cite web |title=A.B. Frost American Illustrator |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/A-B-Frost |website=www.britannica.com |access-date=11 November 2021}} He is interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia in Section C, plot 63.{{cite web |title=Arthur B Frost |url=https://remembermyjourney.com/memorials/arthur-b-frost?id=ANvKQDJ5 |website=remembermyjourney.com |publisher=webCemeteries |access-date=2 January 2025}}

He was admitted posthumously into the Society of Illustration Hall of Fame in 1985. His depiction of Brer Rabbit from the Tales of Uncle Remus books was included on a commemorative stamp in 2001.

File:A.B.Frost 1879-12 Harper's 355 p160 English th.png|A. B. Frost's first comic: a German attempts to pronounce English-language "th" sounds, December 1897

File:A.B.Frost 1881-07 Harper's monthly 374 vol63 p320 our cat eats rat poison.png|Our Cat Eats Rat Poison (titled Fatal Mistake in later editions)

File:Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby.jpg|Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby from the 1895 version of Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings

File:Rail Shooting, by A B Frost from Shooting Pictures, by Scribner & Sons, 1895.jpeg|Rail Shooting, by A B Frost from Shooting Pictures, by Scribner & Sons (1895)

File:Arthur Burdett Frost - The Golfer's Alphabet - Google Art Project.jpg|Front Cover of The Golfer's Alphabet (1898)

File:Rhyme? and reason? (1901) (14590357087).jpg|Illustration from Lewis Caroll's Rhyme? and Reason?

File:Arthur Burdett Frost, He Made Some hootch and tried it on the dog, 1921.jpg|A 1921 illustration by Frost

• [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42190/42190-h/42190-h.htm Out of the Hurly Burly], illustrations (1874)
• Rhyme? And Reason?, by Lewis Carroll (1883)
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=N7cRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP11 Rudder Grange], by Frank R. Stockton (1885)
• A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll (1885)
• Our Cat Eats Rat Poison (titled Fatal Mistake in later editions) (July 1881 in Issue #374 Harper's Magazine)
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=mgql2VexG3IC Stuff and Nonsense], anthology (1884)
• [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The%20Moral%20Pirates The Moral Pirates] by W.L. Alden (1887)
• [https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/47735/pg47735-images.html The Bull Calf and Other Tales], anthology (1892)
• Uncle Remus and His Friends, by Joel Chandler Harris (1892){{cite book |last1=Silvey |first1=Anita |title=Children's Books and Their Creators |date=1995 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company |location=Boston, New York |pages=258–259 |isbn=0395653800 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=graiX5o4tMYC&pg=PA258 |access-date=11 November 2021}}
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=9DELAAAAIAAJ The Story of a Bad Boy] by Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1895)
• Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain (1896)
• The Associate Hermits by Frank R. Stockton (1898){{cite web |title=The Associate Hermits |url=https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20081012 |website=www.fadedpage.com |access-date=14 November 2021}}
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=UfFDAAAAYAAJ Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings] by Joel Chandler Harris (1898)
• Sports and Games in the Open (1899)
• [https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/64770/pg64770-images.html The Chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann], by Joel Chandler Harris (1899)
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=fn86AQAAMAAJ The Golfer's Alphabet], Harper & Brothers, New York and London, (1899)
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=3A9PAAAAYAAJ A Book of Drawings], P.F. Collier & Son, New York (1904)
• Carlo (1912)
• The Epic of Golf, by Clinton Scollard (1923)

{{reflist}}

{{Commons category}}

• {{Gutenberg author | id=24799| name=A. B. Frost}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Arthur Burdett Frost}}
• [http://cdm16100.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15387coll7/ Morristown: A.B. Frost Collection]
• {{LCAuth|n79132179|A. B. Frost|229|}}
• [https://www.bedfordfineartgallery.com/ab_frost_grouse.html Bedford Fine Art Gallery: Arthur Burdett (A.B.) Frost]

{{Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame}}

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Category:1851 births

Category:1928 deaths

Category:19th-century American painters

Category:20th-century American painters

Category:American magazine illustrators

Category:American male golfers

Category:American male painters

Category:Artists from Pasadena, California

Category:Artists from Philadelphia

Category:Burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia)

Category:Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni

Category:People from Morris County, New Jersey

Category:Students of Thomas Eakins

Category:19th-century American male artists

Category:20th-century American male artists