Frank Beanland was born in Bridlington, Yorkshire and attended Hull College of Art from 1952-7 and then the Slade School of Art from 1959-61 studying under Claude Rogers and winning a scholarship prize to Sweden. He began exhibiting in group exhibitions at Young Contemporaries and also exhibited at Drian Galleries, the London Group and Gimpel Fils. He moved to Cornwall in 1962-4. Here he was associated with the Porthleven Group of artists around Michael Canney's Summer School Porthleven Gallery. Whilst in Cornwall he adopted abstraction before teaching at Swansea College of Art and then moving to Suffolk in 1966.
His early paintings applied with a palette knife gave way to his acclaimed spot paintings from 1965 which introduced his broad spectrum of colour and were exhibited in London and France.
This success did not last long and Beanland struggled to maintain his critical standing and financial position. This partly led to his adoption of acrylic on newsprint and chipboard, a technique that Beanland embraced due to the speed and risk inherent in applying his range of colour to a fragile medium.