A. B. Frost

Arthur Burdett Frost (January 17, 1851 – June 22, 1928), usually cited as A. B. Frost, was an American illustrator, graphic artist, painter and comics writer. He is best known for his illustrations of Br'er Rabbit and other characters in the Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus books.

Frost's work is known for its dynamic representation of motion and sequence and for his realistic hunting, shooting and golfing prints. He illustrated over 90 books, produced hundreds of paintings and was a pioneer in the development of comic strips. He was admitted posthumously to the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame in 1985.

Career 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. At the age of fifteen, he worked as an intern at a local business that taught him engraving and lithography. 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. 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.

In 1875, he worked at The Daily Graphic. He returned to Philadelphia and studied under painters Thomas Eakins and William Merritt Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

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. Frost and Harris published several additional versions of the Uncle Remus books including Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings in 1895 and 1898. 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 He is interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia in Section C, plot 63.

Legacy He was admitted posthumously into the Society of Illustration Hall of Fame in 1985. 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) Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings by Joel Chandler Harris (1898) Sports and Games in the Open (1899) The Chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann, by Joel Chandler Harris (1899) The Golfer's Alphabet, Harper & Brothers, New York and London, (1899) A Book of Drawings, P.F. Collier & Son, New York (1904) Carlo (1912) The Epic of Golf, by Clinton Scollard (1923)