Frances Richards initially attended the Burslem School of Art 1920-1924, and later became a pottery designer at the Paragon China Company. From 1928-1939 Richards worked as a teacher in the textile department at the Camberwell School of Art and throughout her life she experimented with embroidery amongst other mediums

Mel Gooding wrote that her work though appears to have been little influenced by her husband's painting-'for over fifty years her own quiet and formalised figurative art was unaffected by her daily closeness to the extravagant and sometimes violent drama of (Ceri) Richards' paintings'

Margaret  Pond (1920-1990) and Frances Richards were friends and collaborated together on embroidery projects.