Frank Ashley
American 1920-2007

Joined Carmel Art Association 1970.

Frank Ashley grew up in St Paul Minnesota. He attended the University of Minnesota, served as a pilot in the Army Air Corps in England during WWII, and was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Purple Heart and four Air Medals.

He studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, the Minneapolis Art Institute, and the Art Student’s League in New York under Reginald Marsh. He was also Mr. Marsh’s assistant part of the time.

Ashley has exhibited many times in New York and has won several awards including the Grand Prize at the first U.S.A. exhibition in 1958. He has had solo shows in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco (including the Legion of Honor, and was awarded the Alma Spreckels Award in 1964), Washington D.C., Aiken, South Carolina, Middleburg. VA, Carmel, and London.

Since 1960 Ashley used the horse more and more frequently in his paintings and traveled throughout the U.S., England, France, Italy, and Ireland observing the flat racing, steeplechase, stadium jumping, hunting, and polo. In 1971, the California Jockey’s Club commissioned Ashley to paint scenes of the racing at Longchamps in Paris and Chantilly, France.

His paintings are in the collections of (partial listing): Cyril Magnin, Melvin Belli, William Holden, Eartha Kitt, Mervyn LeRoy, Syracuse University, Wells Fargo Bank and SF State University.