John Frost was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 14, 1890. Frost trained under his famous father, Arthur B. Frost, as an illustrator and later at the Academie Julian under Richard Miller and Jean Paul Laurens.

For reasons of health, Frost decided to relocate to Pasadena, California in 1918. A highly respected artist, Frost glorified the California landscape with atmospheric and impressionistic renderings of the Sierra Nevada mountains, sunsets, meadows, the small town of Lone Pine, California, shacks in Palm Springs, the arid California desert with pink verbenia flowers and the coastal sand dunes near Carmel.

Frost exhibited and sold his paintings at the Stendahl Gallery that was located at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He was a member of the California Art Club, Painters and Sculptors of Los Angeles and the Pasadena Society of Fine Arts. He was awarded the Gold Medal at the Painters and Sculptors in 1924.

His works can be found in the Garden High School collection, the Irvine Museum collection, Irvine, California and important private collections.

John Frost died at the young age of forty-seven in Pasadena, California on June 5, 1937