The family moved to Australia in 1888, settling in East Melbourne where Plante was enrolled at the Presbyterian Ladies' College in 1891.

She received formal training at the National Gallery School from Lindsay Bernard Hall and Frederick McCubbin.

In 1902 she moved to Paris to study at Académie Julian, sharing a studio with Australian artist Cristina Asquith Baker.

[citation needed] While the beginning of her career saw her painting in an impressionist style similar to James Abbott McNeill Whistler,[citation needed] she was later able to master the post-impressionist style through encouragement from artists such as William Frater and Lina Bryans with whom she lived in an artists' colony in "The Pink Hotel" at Darebin.

Following her death in Melbourne on 3 July 1950, a memorial exhibition was held at the Stanley Coe Gallery[6] in that city.