The Vinton family moved to Chicago in the early 1850s when Frederick was around 10 years old and then, about ten years later, he moved back to Boston. In 1864 Vinton met William Morris Hunt (1824-1879) and began to study painting with him. At the same time he took drawing classes with the renowned anatomist, Dr. William Rimmer (1816-1879) at the Lowell Institute in Boston and was drawing from casts at the Athenaeum. By 1874, Vinton saved enough money working at a local bank and writing art criticism for the Boston Advertiser to study in Europe.

His first year in Europe he studied under Léon Bonnât (1838-1922) in Paris and later, with the encouragement of Frank Duveneck, he went to the Royal Academy in Munich to study with Mauger, Carl Piloty (1826-1886) and Wilhelm von Diez (1839-1907). In 1875, preferring the French method of painting, Vinton returned to Paris to become one of Jean Paul Laurens' (1838-1921) first American students. He returned to Boston in 1879 and, just a few years later in 1882, there would be a second study tour to Europe with artists William Merritt Chase and Robert Blum. This trip was spent in Spain studying the work of the Spanish master, Velázquez. His third trip to Europe came shortly after marrying Annie M. Pierce of Newport on June 27, 1883. This time it was off to Holland to study the work of another master, Franz Hals.

Commissions were plentiful. Vinton, who specialized in male portraits, was one of Boston's most sought after portrait painters. His first major commission was in 1878, when he was employed to paint Thomas Gold Appleton of Harvard University. From that time on, Vinton painted over 300 portraits. Statesmen, jurists, authors, and professional men were among his many sitters. In 1881 and 1885 he was using the former studio of William M. Hunt located at 1 Park Square in Boston and, after 1887, his studio was in his home at 17 Exeter Street, also in Boston.

Vinton was a member of the National Academy of Design, Associate in 1882 and Academician in 1891; a founding member of the St. Botolph Club, Boston in 1880; the Lowell Institute's Tavern Club; and the Society of American Artists in the 1880s.

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