Skip navigation

Main menu

  • What's on
  • Art & Artists
    • The Collection
      Artists
      Artworks
      Art by theme
      Media
      Videos
      Podcasts
      Short articles
      Learning
      Schools
      Art Terms
      Tate Research
      Art Making
      Create like an artist
      Kids art activities
      Tate Draw game
  • Visit
  • Shop
Become a Member
  • DISCOVER ART
  • ARTISTS A-Z
  • ARTWORK SEARCH
  • ART BY THEME
  • VIDEOS
  • ART TERMS
  • SCHOOLS
  • TATE KIDS
  • RESEARCH
  • Tate Britain
    Tate Britain Free admission
  • Tate Modern
    Tate Modern Free admission
  • Tate Liverpool + RIBA North
    Tate Liverpool + RIBA North Free admission
  • Tate St Ives
    Tate St Ives Ticket or membership card required
  • FAMILIES
  • ACCESSIBILITY
  • SCHOOLS
  • PRIVATE TOURS
Tate Logo
Become a Member

William Edward Frost

1810–1877

Meditation
License this image

Biography

William Edward Frost (September 1810 – 4 June 1877) was an English painter of the Victorian era. Virtually alone among English artists in the middle Victorian period, he devoted his practice to the portrayal of the female nude.

Frost was educated in the schools of the Royal Academy, beginning in 1829; he established a reputation as a portrait painter before branching into historical and mythological subjects, including the subgenre of fairy painting that was characteristic of Victorian art. In 1839 he won the Royal Academy's gold medal for his Prometheus Bound, and in 1843 he won a prize in the Westminster Hall competition for his Una Alarmed by Fauns (a subject from Spenser's The Faerie Queene). He was elected an associate member of the Royal Academy in 1846, and a full member in 1870.

Frost is widely recognized as a follower of William Etty, who preceded him as the primary British painter of nudes in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Despite the prudishness of the Victorian era, Frost's relatively chaste nudes were popular, and his career was financially successful.

At their best Frost's works have a distinctive jewel-like charm, his attractive young women models possessing a pert, self-conscious quality which makes them more titillating than Etty's powerful studies....

—Lionel Lambourne, Victorian Painting

This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License. Spotted a problem? Let us know.

Read full Wikipedia entry

Artworks

  • Warrior Seated at a Table

    William Edward Frost
    date not known
  • Meditation

    William Edward Frost
    date not known
Artwork
Close

Join in

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
Sign up to emails

Sign up to emails

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Tate’s privacy policy

About

  • About us
  • Our collection
  • Terms and copyright
  • Governance
  • Picture library
  • ARTIST ROOMS
  • Tate Kids

Support

  • Tate Collective
  • Members
  • Patrons
  • Donate
  • Corporate
  • My account
  • Press
  • Jobs
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Cookies
  • Contact
© The Board of Trustees of the Tate Gallery, 2025
All rights reserved