Barbara Frith ( -2007) was brought up on a ranch in northern Colorado. She earned her way with scholarships through Colorado Women’s College, and then the Cleveland Institute of Art. She received an additional scholarship, the Agnes Page scholarship, to continue painting a fifth year.
As a young girl she was diagnosed with polio and was paralyzed on her entire left side, but with the help of the Sister Kenny Treatment Center at the St. Frances Hospital in Peoria, Illinois, she was able to rehab herself enough to return to graduate school at Denver University. There she met her husband, Don Frith, and they were married in 1949. The couple moved to Santa Maria, California after retirement. Barbara was active in the local art scene and her both her handmade prints and watercolors were often accepted into juried exhibitions. She died in 2007.
This piece was donated to the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art’s permanent collection by her husband Don Frith in 2009.