Frances Walker at 90

Born in Kirkcaldy in 1930, Walker studied at Edinburgh College of Art where she was taught by  Sir William Gillies RSA. After graduating she travelled through Europe before becoming the sole teacher of art in Harris and North Uist in the Outer Hebrides. She latterley took a position as Lecturer in Drawing and Painting at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen. 

Walker's experience of teaching art in the Hebrides led to a life-long love of wild and desolate places. Since then, she has chosen to depict the most remote landscapes and her compositions are often based on coastal reaches, rock formations and isolated beaches. Walker divides her time between Aberdeen and the Western Isles, especially Tiree, where she owns a thatched cottage. 

A founding member of Peacock Printmakers, Aberdeen, Walker has been instrumental in the resurgence of interest in traditional printmaking techniques in Scotland. A printmaker of virtuosic ability, in recent years Walker has focused on the medium as her primary mode for conveying the beauty and turbulence of the landscape.