Born in Philadelphia, John Frost painted luminous, colorful views of the Sierras, desert landscapes of Arizona, and some village scenes. He was one of the few California artists whose work had a pure French Impressionist style, and of this painting style it was written the he was a Californian who "did not hesitate to apply the delicate Impressionist technique to as uncompromising a place as a desert." (Moure 165). However, his brief life was curtailed by tuberculosis, and his paintings are scarce.

He was the son of famous illustrator Arthur B. Frost. Called Jack, he studied with his father and in Paris as a child at Academie Julian under Jean Paul Laurens. From 1906 to 1908, he painted in Paris with Richard Miller and often visited ...