Jonathan Orne Johnson Frost (1852-1928)
Jonathan Frost was a native of Marblehead, Massachusetts and an untrained artist. Frost began to paint in 1922 at age 70 with the idea of preserving the history of the town in which he had spent much of his entire life. He at times was a fisherman, carpenter, and gardener, and ran a seafood restaurant for most of his life, but after his wife’s death in 1919, he began to sculpt and paint scenes of Marblehead life.
In the six years before his death, he produced 130 paintings. His paintings are often labeled and captioned, as the fire engines are identified here, for events and landmarks, with the purpose of educating viewers. Frost never managed to sell his paintings, and it was only in 1938 and 1940 that exhibitions of his work by the Marblehead Historical Society drew attention to the artist. A Smithsonian exhibition commenced institutional collection and exhibition of Frost as an important American folk painter in 1953.
Information courtesy of Skinner Inc.