She married Baynham Bryans in 1931 and they had a son, Edward (24 June 1932 – 23 March 2010), who made his name as a newsreader on ABC radio and television.

Her first works were painted early in 1937 and Basil Burdett selected her Backyards, South Yarra in 1938 for the Herald Exhibition of Outstanding Pictures of 1937.

From 1945 she opened the doors to the Meanjin group: Vance and Nettie Palmer, Rosa and Dolia Ribush, Jean Campbell, Laurie Thomas and Alan McCulloch.

There they joined the moderates in the Contemporary Art Society (Norman Macgeorge, Clive Stephen, Isobel Tweddle and Rupert Bunny, Sybil Craig, Guelda Pyke, Elma Roach, Ola Cohn and Madge Freeman and George Bell).

It included Nude (1945, NGV) and Portrait of Nina Christesen (1947),[8] both painted at Darebin, which she sold later that year and moved to Harkaway, near Berwick.

In the 1960s, as a guest exhibitor, she was one of the most important and professional artists associated with the Society, and critics consistently placed her works at the forefront of MSWPS group shows.

[12] In the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours Bryans was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for "service to the visual arts as a landscape painter".