Design and Art Australia Online

painter and commercial artist, was born in Brisbane. lways known as Frank, she was educated at All Hallows Convent, then studied art at the Central Technical College under Godfrey Rivers. She exhibited with the Queensland Art Society from 1902 until leaving Australia in 1905 to continue her studies in Paris and London. For two and a half years she wrote regular articles for the Brisbane Courier on her travels and art studies. She joined two mixed studio classes at Colarossi’s for nine months, followed by a shorter period at L’Ecole des Beaux Arts, briefly attended La Grande Chaumiére and was taught black-and-white work by Steinlen. After a summer spent sketching and painting in Brittany, she moved to London to study in Frank Brangwyn’s studio, where a teacher called Swan advised her to 'draw with her brain and not her fingers’ – advice she repeated back home on several occasions.

After returning to Brisbane in late 1907, Frank began doing freelance work for the Courier and the Sydney Bulletin, commercial catalogues for Finney’s department store, illustrations for the Queenslander and travel brochures for the AUSN shipping line. In March 1916 Lone Hand published an article by Freda Sternberg in which she was called 'an exceptional business woman’ as well as artist. She was then living in Sydney working for Smith and Julius drawing catalogue illustrations for David Jones and Farmers, covers for Woman’s Mirror, modelling bowls and jugs and painting and illustrating. She also drove her own car.

In 1921, aged thirty-five, she married Andrew Clinton, a naval captain. They had three sons before separating in 1928. From then on, she supported her sons herself. She was said to be one of Australia’s highest paid working women. She painted throughout her long commercial career, holding her first painting exhibition at Sydney in 1922 with Alice Norton. She showed regularly with the Royal Art Society from 1923 until the 1950s; in 1930 she won its George Taylor Memorial Prize of 25 guineas for her oil painting, Rehearsal. She joined the Society of Women Painters in 1919 and exhibited with them annually from 1921. She also held several solo exhibitions.

Her speciality when 'painting seriously’, she said in 1930, was 'children [often her own] in natural surroundings’. Her oil painting, Sydney Water Babies, was reproduced on the cover of B.P. Magazine in December 1930. Feeding Time (c.1920, private collection) is the best known of her many pictures of children among chickens or other animals. She also painted portraits of women; an undated double-sided oil, Chapeau and Interior with Seated Woman in White, is in the Fred and Eleanor Wrobel collection, Sydney.

Wishing to promote more commercial opportunities for younger women artists Payne led the movement that transformed the Sydney Society of Women Painters into the Women’s Industrial Arts Society (thereby alienating Ethel Stephens and other Fine artists). She became the first president in 1935 and gave a series of ABC radio broadcasts for the society. She was friendly with many women artists, including Jessie Traill, Ethel Carrick Fox and the writer Dorothea Mackellar. She championed Daphne Mayo and Lloyd Rees early in their careers in Brisbane. In 1937 she was awarded the King’s Coronation Medal for her work in the arts. In 1946 she helped Billy Hughes in his campaign for the Federal seat of North Sydney.

Writers:

Philp, Angela

Date written:

1995

Last updated:

2011