Frances Walker CBE, RSA, RSW, D.Litt, Hon FECA is an artist who has lived and worked in Aberdeen for 60 years. Born in Kirkcaldy in 1930 Frances Walker studied at Edinburgh College of Art and after attending Moray House College of Education was sole teacher of art for all schools in Harris and North Uist, Western isles 1956-1958 then lecturer in drawing and painting at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen 1958-1985.Frances was one of the founder members of Peacock Printmakers in 1974 and has continued to have a close association with the workshop ever since and is still printmaking from stone, plate and screen.This print was part of our first solo exhibtion "The Finnish Suite" in 1980. Our 1996 book Peacock 21 has the following insight into this exhibtion:“Perhaps the artist who has been most involved with Peacock Printmakers from the earliest Board of Management through chairing the organisation during a particularly difficult period, is Frances Walker. She has been a regular user making countless etchings, monoprints and collographs. Her many collaborations with staff printers have extended the technical repertoire in each department through testing combinations of line and texture. All her many exhibitions in the last fifteen years have featured a substantial print element and she has always demonstrated a very personal involvement in all stages of production. It was most fitting that Frances was chosen to feature in the first exhibition project that Peacock was to produce with an individual artist. The Finnish Suite was the result of an extended visit to Finland on a Gillies bursary from the Royal Scottish Academy. Two etchings, a screenprint and six lithographs resulted as well as additional unique proofs. The lithographs were particularly succesful, relying on Frances’s mastery of drawing. Although some have touches of screenprinted colour and one is printed from two blacks from different stones the overall impression is of fully toned drawings on a wonderfully sympathetic range of softly coloured hand-made papers from Barcham Green. In these prints Frances fully exploits the unique possibilities offered by a range of drawing techniques on lithographic limestone. Crayons are used along with pen and ink and particularly the restrained use of blades to scrape back the drawing allowing negative lines to enliven tonal passages. This project marked the start of a most fruitful collaboration between Frances and lithographer Stewart Cordiner.”Paper Size: 56 x 76 cmMedium: Etching with aquatintEdition Size: 30Year: 1980
