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Frances B. Owen (1919 - 1991)
Born in Asheville, North Carolina, Frances was the daughter of school teacher Margaret Carter Beacham and respected Carolina architect James D. Beacham. She showed her talents as a gifted artist from a very young age. After high school her family sent her to study art at the exclusive Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., and in the late 1930s she met fellow student, artist and journalist Frank Owen. They married in 1940 and moved to Frank's home town of Lynchburg, Virginia, where Frances started her art career that would span over five decades and make her well-known in the southeast U.S.A.
By 1950 Frank and Frances had four children and returned to Washington, D.C. where Frank was city editor with the Washington Star newspaper. They bought a house in the embassy district near Rock Creek Park, where she painted a large mural of a seaport village in the dining room. Frances continued painting and studying many art forms and was active in art circles in the Washington area.
In 1955 the couple fulfilled their dream of rearing their children in a smaller town on the sea coast and they moved to Bradenton, Florida. Frank became an editor with the Bradenton Herald newspaper. They built a waterfront home on Warner's West Bayou (near the Gulf of Mexico) complete with a studio where Frances spent countless hours painting, sculpting and experimenting with techniques and colors. Her children remember posing for hours as she painted their portraits in pen and ink, pastels, oils or acrylics. Frances painted more lifesize murals on the new walls. During her career, Frances created beautiful boating scenes, waterscapes, landscapes, still lifes and portraits. She welded large metal sculptures of water birds and other objects. She made wood carving prints and produced her own silk screen reproductions. She was often commissioned to capture portraits of Florida's social and civic leaders and their families. She was an active member of the Art Leagues in Manatee and Sarasota Counties. The Ringling Foundation had displayed her work at numerous shows and exhibitions in museums and civic locations.
Frances would also take trips into the rural countryside to find old dilapidated barns and buildings. She would then get permission from the farmer or owner to remove pieces of the old weathered wood that had interesting grains and coloring. Returning the wood treasures to her studio, she would then paint images of birds, still life, animals and fruit directly on the wood. These art-on-wood pieces are a favorite among collectors.
For eleven years during the 1970's and 80's, Frances was the art teacher and department head at the St. Stephen's School. Her students soon discovered that their teacher was an intelligent free spirit with an endearing quality and an appreciation of life and art that she would pass on to them.
Many vacations were spent with friends and students on painting and photography expeditions to New England, Canada, Central America, South America, Mexico, England, France, Isle of Man, Greece and Italy.
Throughout her life, Frances gained quite a following, not only through her artistic talent, but through her generous and likeable personality. Her late husband Frank once laughingly said that, "he couldn't recall any of his friends who weren't in love with his wife."
"We are excited to offer reproductions of mother's work," said her son Beacham, who is also an artist known for his motorsports art. "These pieces are from the family collection and have never been seen before."
Both Frances and Frank were avid sailors and spent most of their spare time boating and sailing the waters of the Manatee River, Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
Weekends would bring an assortment of friends to socialize at the big house on the bayou. The Owen family would entertain such notables as actor Thomas Mason, World Book Encyclopedia author Dr. Henry Abbott, New Yorker Magazine and NBC-TV trial illustrator Leo Hershfield and his wife Mary Emma (a former Radio City Rockette), philanthropist Roy Kellogg, Pogo cartoonist Walt Kelly, AirWick inventor and Longboat Journal publisher Guy Pascal, Sailing Magazine's Morgan Steinmetz, artist Alice Campbell Flenner (daughter of artist Blendon Reed Campbell) artists John and Kay Neilson, artist Betty McCall, and a bevy of famous boat builders including Dave Davidson, Jack Muir (Muirmade), Tom Tuten (Aquacraft) and Charley Morgan (Morgan Yachts).
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