Maud Frances Eyston Sumner (1902–1985) was a South African artist.
Attracted to the French art scene, she moved to Paris in 1926, where she studied for four years at the Academie de la Grande Chaumière.
She was part of the art movement called the Ateliers d'Art Sacré and loved the new style of painting taught by the masters George Desvallieres and his co-founder Maurice Denis, where everyday scenes were permeated with religious undertones.
[1] Although she had been separated from the South African art world, Sumner was invited by Walter Battiss to exhibit with the New Group in 1938.
She was awarded the Medal of Honour by the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns in November 1971, accompanied by a sensationally successful "semi-retrospective" exhibition at the South African Association of Art Gallery in Pretoria.