Having immigrated to Scotland, her family settled first in Edinburgh and then in Glasgow, where her parents ran a shop in Gorbals repairing cameras and optical devices.
[1] The Franks lived in Glasgow's Gorbals district, where there was a strong Jewish immigrant community, first in Abbotsford Road and later in South Portland Street.
[2] Frank was a student at the University of Glasgow in 1926–27, 1928–29 and 1929–30, taking courses in Latin, English, French, Moral Philosophy and Botany, living at home during her periods of study.
"[2] By 1929, Gilbert Highet, the editor of GUM, had moved to Oxford and had become involved with The University News, in which he unsuccessfully attempted to have published two of Frank's illustrations, Red Flowers and Sorcery.
Her teachers in the latter included Dugdale, Keppie, Richmond, Gauld, Whitelaw Hamilton, Anningbell, Forrester Wilson and Gray.
It was also during this period that Frank began clay modelling at the Glasgow School of Art under Paul Zunterstein and Benno Schotz who encouraged her work, and sculpture became her main passion.
[7] Although she had works published in the Glasgow University Magazine which brought with it involvement with the wider university community, during her later career, Frank's work was to reach a wide audience including many in Glasgow's Jewish community where she received many appeals to donate art to help with fundraising appeals.
This involvement can be characterised by focusing on the years between 1948 and 1969, in which Frank either donated or lent her artwork for charitable and fundraising purposes for Jewish organisations.
Throughout her career, Frank assisted in any areas possible to help various organisations raise money, whether this was designing brochures or lending her work to help fundraise.
The Rosal Wollstein was a women-run Glasgow branch that belonged to the Women's International Zionist Organisation, whose aim was to raise money for projects such as Israeli orphanages (Letter 2/3/9, from Mrs D. N. Links to Mrs L. Levy, 26 March 1966, Hannah Frank & Lionel Levy Collection, Scottish Jewish Archives Centre).
Ethel Collins and Louis Ferrar of the appeal wrote to Frank and gave expansive thanks for her donation (Letter 2/3/11, from Ms Ethel Collins & Mr Louis Ferrar, 28 November 1967, Hannah Frank & Lionel Levy Collection, Scottish Jewish Archives Centre).
In 1969, Frank donated a signed print to the Glasgow Women's Zionist Organisation's Jewish Art Group, which was auctioned to presumably raise money (Letter 2/3/28, from Mrs J. Lewis to Mrs L. Levy, 14 December 1969, Hannah Frank & Lionel Levy Collection, Scottish Jewish Archives Centre).
[11] Following an exhibition in 1969 at her brother's premises in Forrest Road, prints began to be made to satisfy the demand and interest in her work.
[12] From 25 April – 5 June 2004 the Lancaster City Museum and Art Gallery hosted the first show of the successful touring exhibition: Hannah Frank: A Glasgow Artist.
This toured for five years in the run up to Frank's 100th birthday, which coincided with the exhibition's final destination, her alma mater, the University of Glasgow.
The influences of artists such as the McDonald sisters, Jessie King, Aubrey Beardsley, Harry Clark and John Duncan can be seen in her work.
According to an interview she gave whilst living in West Acres care home she claimed that women are simply more aesthetic and nicer to draw and, as an artist, she was more interested in capturing this.
The black and white contrast and the horizontal and vertical lines create a dynamic atmosphere and dramatise the scene with simple methods.
Although sculptures mark a different artistic branch from drawings even here you can find a simplistic style combined with a striking aliveness.
Although her first intention was to learn anatomic details, her work shifts again from realistic portrayals to experiments with surreal proportions: examples are another drawing entitled “Reclining Woman” (1964) and “Untitled” (1968).
Although some wood engravings, family portraits and sketches survive, her main early artistic focus was on her black and white drawings and, later, on her sculpture.