John Frost

(1890-1937)

Live Oaks 32 x 40in framed 44 x 50in

Footnotes

Provenance
Edenhurst Gallery, Los Angeles, California.
Sale, Coeur d'Alene Art Auction, July 24, 2004, lot 75.
Private collection, Connecticut.

Exhibited
Los Angeles, Southwest Museum, First Annual Competitive Exhibition of Paintings of California Artists, November 1921 (honorable mention).
Los Angeles, Ambassador Hotel, Stendahl Galleries, John Frost [solo exhibition], April 5 - 15, 1923.
Pasadena, Pasadena Museum of History, Nature's Palette, Busch Gardens Exhibition, April 30 - June 26, 2005.

Literature
Los Angeles Times, November 27, 1921, rotogravure section, 1, illustrated.
Phil Kovinick, John Frost, A Quiet Mastery, Irvine, 2013, pp. 106, 107, 184, 219, 220, illustrated.

John Frost was born into a family of artists, yet he carved his own path out West. His father was A.B. Frost, one of the giants from the Golden Age of American Illustration. John's artistic training began under his father until the family's move to Paris in 1907. He entered the Académie Julian, and a year later he moved to Giverny, France. Undoubtedly, Monet's influence and his association with other American Impressionist painters such as Richard Miller and Guy Rose (a close family friend), shaped the direction his work would take.

Unfortunately, in 1910, suffering from tuberculosis, Frost was placed in a Swiss sanatorium for three years to recover. Drawn for health reasons to the dry and warm climate of the American West, he made his first trip out in 1916, visiting California and Arizona. In 1919, as a newly married man, he and his wife settled in Pasadena, where they made their home for most of his career. Frost was particularly inspired by the California desert landscape. Between trips to Palm Springs, he visited the Mojave Desert in the summer and early fall. The ranges around this desert valley floor provided an excellent panoramic view for his sketch pad — sketches that were later translated into oil paintings.

Frost's canvases were first shown in California at several venues in Los Angeles and Pasadena. Particularly notable was the First Annual Competitive Exhibition of Paintings of California Artists, held at the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles in November 1921. This large canvas titled Live Oaks not only earned him an honorable mention but also gave further notice of his ability as an artist, particularly when one considers that the Southwest Museum show included works by a who's who of top California painters such as Franz Bischoff, Edgar Payne and William Wendt. One of the first to become aware of John Frost's potential was Earl Stendahl (1888-1966), who was soon to reign as Los Angeles's preeminent art dealer. Stendahl began carrying Frost's paintings in early 1921 shortly after opening his first Southern California gallery in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Frost would continue this association with Stendahl for many years. ¹

In Live Oaks, Frost shows off his brilliant mastery of light and shadow combined with his impressionistic use of staccato dabs of bright lavenders, greens and browns. His paintings have a distinct softness to them. There are no hard edges, only light touches of gentleness. One can almost feel the heat of the landscape, the distant cicadas, and the distinct smell of a hot stress-free summer day. At first glance the scene might seem simple and devoid of detail, but on closer inspection each branch of foliage, each shadow and mountainside is created from a complicated construction of brushwork. Like a puzzle that looks solid from afar but reveals details on closer inspection, Live Oaks comes together to create a rich surface that dazzles the viewer's eye as only the best painters of the day could.

This canvas is particularly large for Frost, whose paintings are rare due to his poor health and his interest in only keeping and signing works he deemed acceptable. Phil Kovinick, in his book John Frost, A Quiet Mastery, estimates that the artist painted 300 works at most and probably less. Live Oaks has held the auction record as the most expensive painting sold at auction by John Frost since 2004.

¹ Phil Kovinick, John Frost, A Quiet Mastery, Irvine, The Irvine Museum, 2013, p. 106.

A copy of John Frost, A Quiet Mastery by Phil Kovinick, published by The Irvine Museum, accompanies the lot.