Sand, Stones and Sea Orkney, 1983

Born in Kirkcaldy in 1930, Frances Walker studied at Edinburgh College of Art and then took up a post as visiting teacher of art for the Hebrides. This experience engendered in her a life-long love of wild and desolate places and since then she has chosen to depict the most remote landscapes, her compositions usually based on coastal reaches, craggy rocks and deserted beaches. Moving to Aberdeen, where she has now lived and worked for 60 years, Walker took up a post at Gray’s School of Art. After retirement in 1985, she has since divided her time between Aberdeen and the Western Isles, especially Tiree, where she owns a thatched cottage, but  has also travelled further afield – her latest inspiration being the even wilder and more desolate landscape of the Antarctic and South Georgia. A suite of Antarctic paintings were recently bequeathed and exhibited as part of a major exhibition, Among the Polar Ice at The McManus in Dundee (September 2019 – March 2020). Walker was a founding member of Peacock Print Studio in Aberdeen, and printmaking continues to form an important part of her artistic practice. She was recognised with a CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours in 2021.