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Game of Checkers
Checkers Artist
Arthur Burdett Frost
Arthur Burdett Frost
1851 – 1928
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
A Close Checkers Game
- painting by, checkers artist Arthur Burdett
Frost
1904.
Early American artist painter Arthur
Burdett Frost, illustrator, graphic artist
and cartoonist, who became known for his illustrations
for renowned authors such as Lewis Carroll,
Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt
and William Thackeray.
- Frost’s father, a historian
and biographer, died when Arthur was
nine and although he was one of ten children,
only two siblings survived past his teenage
years.
- Art was a mode of expression
that Arthur Frost discovered early in life
and it held a great fascination for him
so he pursued a career in it as a lithographer;
however, by the age of 23, he was working
left rather uninspired by the medium, but
then he was offered a chance to illustrate
a satirical book, which became a sensation
due to his 400 illustrations.
- Checkers artist Arthur Burdett Frost
appeared to find a niche in illustration
and cartooning and was often considered
the ‘sportsman’s
artist’ because of his elegant
and witty golfing caricatures published
in the contemporary magazine, Harper’s
Weekly.
- He worked chiefly in New York City and
became one of the most popular illustrators
of his time; his most characteristic drawings
portrayed various scenes of American rural
life such as his theme of a casual game
of checkers observed by interested spectators
in his engraving, ‘A
Close Game’.
- Hand colored halftone engraving that
depicted a detailed rendering of a leisurely
game of checkers between two men in
a country store.
- Artist Arthur Burdett Frost’s portrayal
showed a realistic and vivid scene displaying
the emotional concentration at the checkerboard
in a rustic environment of the time.
- His media of choice varied according
to the theme of his work and included
charcoal sketches, gouache and ink drawings,
oil and watercolor paintings.
- Arthur’s subject matter held a
broad spectrum from wildlife to frontier
settings to expression in the humorous
genre and he favored Impressionism before
1940, though became more interested in
caricature and cartooning later in life.
- Rare in the field of art, checkers artist
Arthur Burdett Frost was blessed with a
happy family life, fame and fortune from
ca. 1870, but when his one son died from
a brief, but violent illness in France,
Frost never fully recovered from his shock
and grief.
- In 1920, artist Frost moved his family
to California for the sake of his second
son’s
health and stayed there until he peacefully
passed away on January 22, 1928.
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