In 2020, the Scottish artist Frances Walker turned 90. Exhibitions at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh and Peacock in Aberdeen, organised to celebrate her birthday, were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. It was a year later that audiences had the chance to view works by one of Scotland's finest living landscape painters who, despite the limits brought by age, remains focussed on making new work.

Walker spent lockdown alone in her home in Aberdeen. One suspects solitude doesn't bother her. For much of her life, she has lived and worked alone. The retrospective for her eightieth birthday at Aberdeen Art Gallery in 2010 was titled 'Place Observed in Solitude'. She doesn't own a television or computer ('I can't waste time trying to learn those things') – her concern is, and always has been, her work.

Wester Ross Landscape

Wester Ross Landscape 1984

Frances Walker (b.1930)

The Fleming Collection

If her name is not as widely known as it might be it is because she studiously avoids the spotlight. She normally declines interviews and warns me sternly more than once about the importance of accuracy. When she received the prestigious Churchill Award for art in 2015 (at the same time as Judi Dench for acting and Michael Morpurgo for literature) it was a rare moment of nationwide recognition.

Sweeps and Chimney Pots

Sweeps and Chimney Pots c.1952–1953

Frances Walker (b.1930)

Edinburgh College of Art (University of Edinburgh)

Walker was born in August 1930 in Kirkcaldy. She points out that her birth coincided with the evacuation from St Kilda, when the population of Scotland's most remote islands left their homes of their own volition to be rehoused on the mainland. Remote places have always fascinated her, especially those once inhabited, and she returns to them again and again in her work.

Leaving St Kilda

Leaving St Kilda 2002

Frances Walker (b.1930)

Fife Council

She studied at Edinburgh College of Art under William Gillies, and then trained to be a teacher at Moray House College. It was here she discovered she has synaesthesia, the neurological condition in which words or music stimulate a person to experience colours, shapes or smells. 'Today (Thursday) is greyish green, Friday is a warm brown. The colours I see tend to be softer, tweedy colours, natural colours, not Barbara-Rae strong colours.'

'My own name is a sort of dull pinky colour, I've never liked it. Your name is a pleasanter pink than mine, a lovely soft pink.' She halts herself abruptly. 'But now I digress.'

MV Lochiel Making for Scalasaig

MV Lochiel Making for Scalasaig 1959

Frances Walker (b.1930)

Art & Heritage Collections, Robert Gordon University

Leaving college in the 1950s, she applied for a job as the sole teacher of art on Harris and North Uist. She spent half the year on each island, travelling between schools. 'I went about on school buses, delivery vans, tractors, I was once on horseback. There was no electricity on North Uist all the time I was there. It came to Harris while I was there. Most people had not been to the mainland, no children had eaten ice cream, it was a time beyond a lot of people's experience.'

Wet Hay, Harris

Wet Hay, Harris

Frances Walker (b.1930)

NHS Lothian Charity – Tonic Collection

It seemed to nurture her love of remote places. She would go on to draw and paint all over the Hebrides and the Northern Isles and, from the late 1970s, would spend part of the year in a thatched cottage on Tiree. She also travelled to paint in some of the most remote places in the world: Iceland, Greenland, Canada's North West Territories and Alaska.

A Look at the Sea

A Look at the Sea c.1978

Frances Walker (b.1930)

Highland Council

Her paintings and prints often explore coastlines, rock formations and beaches. They speak of absorption in place, and examine it almost forensically, with the eye of a geographer or a geologist as well as an artist.

Green Geo

Green Geo (edition 31/50)

Frances Walker (b.1930)

Fife Council

Often, her paintings are unpeopled, but she says the presence of human beings is often implied. 'Even in the barest landscape, you can often see the past. The past is there, if you look carefully, you can see the ancient lazy beds, and further back to Iron Age things, it isn't as empty as it looks.'

Empty Potato Field

Empty Potato Field 1952

Frances Walker (b.1930)

Edinburgh College of Art (University of Edinburgh)

In the book which accompanied the Aberdeen retrospective ten years ago, Professor Murdo MacDonald wrote: 'This theme of geography and community is right at the heart of her world. She rarely draws people, and yet few artists better imply the place of human beings as part of the ecology of the planet.' In a career which has spanned seven decades, she is also capturing change, the way changing patterns of human behaviour are continually affecting the land, for good or ill.

In a Hailuoto House

In a Hailuoto House 1978

Frances Walker (b.1930)

Fife Council

In 1958, Walker was offered a job teaching drawing and painting at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen. She stayed until early retirement in 1985, teaching artists including Arthur Watson, Joyce Cairns, Kate Downie and Alan Robb. She was a founding member of Peacock Printmakers Workshop in 1974 (now Peacock Visual Arts and currently rebranding as Peacock & the Worm), where she taught herself etching. Recently, since surgery on a shoulder limited her ability to work on large paintings, she has been editing and remaking prints from plates she made at Peacock in the early days, revisiting landscapes from 40 years ago.

Surfers' Tracks

Surfers' Tracks c.1990

Frances Walker (b.1930)

Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums

'I've been finding it very interesting to do. In some places, there have been big, big changes. I drew fields on Harris with little black lazybeds, fertilising the land with seaweed from the shore, all that has changed.' Tiree, meanwhile, has become a mecca for surfers from around the world. 'What one of my crofting friends used to call "the surfacers", as if they were gliding over the surface of life. I didn't mind them.'

Antarctic Waters

Antarctic Waters 2008

Frances Walker (b.1930)

Dundee Art Galleries and Museums Collection (Dundee City Council)

She says she has always liked 'the extreme ends of the world' and has journeyed to both northern and southern extremes by boat, which she describes as 'a very genuine way to travel'. In 2007, at the age of 76, she made a trip to Antarctica, after which she painted an ambitious series of large-scale paintings capturing the icy landscapes and turquoise seas. These were exhibited recently in Dundee's McManus Galleries' 'Among the Polar Ice' exhibition and are now part of the McManus collection.

Late Summer, Antarctica

Late Summer, Antarctica 2009

Frances Walker (b.1930)

Dundee Art Galleries and Museums Collection (Dundee City Council)

'I just wanted to see it, it's just such a different experience to go there. Things are changing there too. The historic refuge is no longer there. The landscape is always under threat because of the possible exploitation of all the minerals under it. Even there, everything is changing.'

Susan Mansfield, writer and journalist

A version of this article was originally published by The Fleming Collection

The exhibition 'This Fragile Earth: Pioneer Scottish Artists who anticipated the climate crisis' features work by Frances Walker. It is on display at the University of Stirling until 8th August 2025