A painter of rural genre scenes and landscapes, Frank R. Green studied briefly at the Art Institute of Chicago before going to Paris in the early 1880s and enrolling at the académies Julian and Colarossi. Upon his return to the United States, he specialized in farm scenes, with a palette tending toward somber hues. He showed his first painting at the Academy, a French landscape, in the annual of 1882 and continued contributing works fairly regularly until well into the twentieth century. Toward the end of his life, he worked almost exclusively in watercolor. He returned to France at least once, in 1900. Green belonged to the American Watercolor Society and the New York Watercolor Club. He was a charter member of the Lotus Club and a member of the Salmagundi Club, where he resided during his last years. Perhaps the most distinguished of his several honors was the Samuel T. Shaw Purchase Prize, awarded him in 1898 by the Salmagundi Club; it was the first time the prize was given.
It was remembered at the Academy's annual meeting following his death that Green, "During the course of his long life . . . saw the rise of many cults and 'isms' in art but he remained the conservative painter, totally uninfluenced by any of them."
