Frost & Adams was an artists' supply firm in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, located in Cornhill

Cornhill, Boston

Cornhill was a street in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 19th-20th centuries, located on the site of the current City Hall Plaza in Government Center. It was named in 1829; previously it was known as Market Street . In its time, it comprised a busy part of the city near Brattle Street, Court Street...

, on the current site of Boston City Hall

Boston City Hall

Boston City Hall is the seat of the municipal government of Boston, Massachusetts. Architecturally, it is an example of the brutalist style. It was designed by Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles...

 and City Hall Plaza

City Hall Plaza (Boston)

City Hall Plaza in Boston, Massachusetts, is a large, open, unadorned public space in the Government Center area of the city. The architectural firm Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles designed the plaza in 1962 to accompany Boston's new City Hall. The multi-level, irregularly-shaped plaza consists of red...

. It began in 1869 when artist Francis Seth Frost

Francis Seth Frost

Francis Seth Frost or F.S. Frost was a painter, photographer, and businessman specializing in artists' materials. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, he travelled widely in the United States. Friends included Albert Bierstadt....

 and retailer E.H. Adams bought the business of Matthew J. Whipple. By the 1880s Frost & Adams were "the chief dealers in artists' materials in New England."

History

Proprietors included F.S. Frost, E.H. Adams, H.A. Lawrence, Herbert C. Gardner, Joseph H. Peacock, and Edward J. White. The firm later moved to Arch Street (ca.1921).
In the 1880s the firm stocked "all the materials used by painters, engravers, etchers, repousse-workers, china-painters, crayon artists, water colorists, tapestry-painters, architects, engineers, and draughtsmen." They also carried "fancy articles for decorating, in bronze and brass, porcelain and china, Albenine and Barbotine

Barbotine

Barbotine is the French for ceramic slip, or a mixture of clay and water used for moulding or decorating pottery. In English the term is used for two different techniques. In the first, common from the Ancient World onwards, the barbotine is piped onto the object rather as cakes are decorated...

 ware, bisque vases and terraline ware, tambourines of sheepskin, calfskin, brass, and satin." "Five-sixths of the trade is wholesale, extending throughout New England, the Middle and Western States, and Canada, and kept in activity by travelling salesmen."

Many art world luminaries shopped at Frost & Adams. It was "the depot of supplies for Hunt, Inness

George Inness

George Inness was an American landscape painter; born in Newburgh, New York; died at Bridge of Allan in Scotland. His work was influenced, in turn, by that of the old masters, the Hudson River school, the Barbizon school, and, finally, by the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose spiritualism...

, Neal, Brown, Cole, Enneking

John Joseph Enneking

John Joseph Enneking was an American Impressionist born of German ancestry in Minster, Ohio on 4 October 1841.He was educated at Mount St...

, Norton, Vinton, Picknell, Gaugengigl, Shapleigh, ... H.H. Richardson

Henry Hobson Richardson

Henry Hobson Richardson was a prominent American architect who designed buildings in Albany, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and other cities. The style he popularized is named for him: Richardsonian Romanesque...

, Cabot & Chandler, Van Brunt & Howe, Peabody & Stearns."

Sometime after 1921, Frost & Adams was bought by the H.H. Sullivan Company, which itself was acquired by B.L. Makepeace Inc. in 1931. As of 2010, Makepeace operates from headquarters in Brighton, Massachusetts, and specializes in reprographics and survey equipment.

Further reading

• Frost & Adams Co, Boston. Descriptive Catalogue. Importers of Artists' Materials, Draughting Papers, Tracing Cloth, and Mathematical Instruments, 1877.
• King's hand-book of Boston. Boston: 1889. Google books
• Norman E. Muller. Checklist of Boston Retailers in Artist's Materials: 1823-1887. Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Autumn, 1977), pp. 53-69

External links

• Catalogue of Artists' Materials & Mathematical Instruments, Frost & Adams Co., Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 1905
• Flickr. Photo of canvas from Frost and Adams Cornhill-Boston ca.1856
• Flickr. Close-up photo of canvas from Frost and Adams Cornhill-Boston ca.1856