His portraits, both real and imagined, include a ballerina's legs in African Genealogy; Hitler in Dipsomaniac; Walter himself as Christ on the Cross; and Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales as Adam and Eve.
Walter was raised by elderly family matriarchs and learned from oral histories at a young age that his ancestors included both aristocratic European slave owners and enslaved people of African descent.
During Walter's youth, Antigua was a society divided along racial lines, and the reality of mixed-race families created outside of marriage was largely considered private knowledge and often lost through the generations.
[6] In his youth, Walter's education and professional trajectory defied the statistical challenges facing young men of color in 1930s Antigua, and the identity that he constructed was heavily influenced by his awareness of his aristocratic European forebears.
When he was promoted to the role of manager in 1948 at the age of 22 by mentor and Director Sir Alexander Moody-Stuart, Walter became the first to work as an equal among whites in the Antiguan Sugar Syndicate.
Walter was offered the opportunity to manage the entire Antiguan Sugar Syndicate in 1953, but he turned down this job to embark on what was intended to be a ten-year industrial Grand Tour of Great Britain and Europe.
He was motivated by a desire to engage new technologies to alleviate the poverty of his fellow black countrymen, and wanted to introduce the latest European and British innovation in mining and agriculture to Antigua.
During this time, Walter continued to write poetry and prose, and also began to sculpt figures using wood harvested from his estate in a style that was likely inspired by the traditions of the Caribbean Arawak and African Dogon peoples.
For this reason, comparisons have been made between Frank Walter and mathematician John Nash, who was featured in the 1998 novel A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar and the 2001 film of the same name directed by Ron Howard.
[11] Walter's art practice has been linked to a diverse group of artists, including Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), Adolf Wölfli (1864–1930), Alfred Wallis (1855–1942), Forrest Bess (1911–1977), and Henry Darger (1892–1973).
According to The New York Times critic Jason Farago, Walter's paintings of Antiguan flora—the insignia of European nobility—and his small abstractions of stars and circles recall the pop art of Robert Indiana.
The exhibition features paintings and sculptures alongside furniture, writings and ephemera from Walter's secluded rural home and studio; offering a fascinating and moving glimpse into the life of the prolific and profound multidisciplinary artist."
–Thelma Golden, director and chief curator, Studio Museum, NY[13] One of Walter's most internationally recognized exhibition to date has been Antigua and Barbuda's inaugural National Pavilion as part of La Biennale di Venezia 2017.
[14][15][16] The exhibition was refreshingly straightforward: It was conceived to encourage the visitor to inhabit the world of artist Frank Walter, with a generous amount of comfortable seating within interior gallery spaces and an exterior Antiguan garden for quiet reflection.
In keeping with this theme of inclusivity, no entrance fee was charged and the exhibition was thoughtfully designed by Preservation Green LLC of New York to be fully accessible for people with disabilities.
Born in 1926 in Antigua – a West Indian island whose people were repressed and murdered under British colonial rule from the 1600s, only gaining full independence in 1981 – Walter was a descendent of both plantation owners and slaves."
"It is in these cosmic works, which recall Sun Ra's conception of space as a site of liberation, that Walter's approach to life becomes most evident; as a journey in search of worlds capable of accommodating the depth and breadth of far-reaching hopes and visions.