Frank Sherrin was largely self-taught, apart from some lessons in watercolour from Vida Lahey, and played an active role in Brisbane’s art scene. With Lillian Pedersen, Mona Elliott, Rosalie Wilson, Anne Ross and Leonard Shillam, Sherrin was a founding member of the Half Dozen Group of Artists, serving as its vice chairman from 1941 to 1946 and then president until 1956. According to their minutes, the group was established ‘to enlarge and add to the art interest of Brisbane’ and provided alternative exhibition opportunities to those offered by the Royal Queensland Art Society. The group’s formation was reported in the press, and this perceived challenge to the establishment created considerable controversy.

Sherrin worked in the engineering section of Brisbane’s Postmaster General's Department and painted on his weekends with artists such as Charles Lancaster. Sherrin completed many of his paintings en plein air (‘outdoors’), with his preferred subjects including seascapes, landscapes and urban scenes around Brisbane. Fellow Queensland-born painter Lloyd Rees remarked that Sherrin ‘is an impressionist . . . and it is this feeling for “place” and “mood” which has impressed me’.