She read art history at the University of Nottingham and began writing pieces for the TLS, The Burlington Magazine and art journals while still a post-graduate. She has a specialist interest in twentieth-century British art and first established her reputation with Roger Fry: Art and Life. She went on to write lives of the artists Vanessa Bell, John Minton, Duncan Grant, Gwen Raverat and John and Myfanwy Piper, as well as a biography of the poet Stevie Smith. Her survey history, British Art since 1900, in the Thames & Hudson World of Art series, has been widely used in schools, colleges and universities, and in the mid-1990s she was commissioned by Tate to write a centenary history of this national institution. Between 2000 and 2015, she taught at Newcastle University, becoming Professor of Art History. She acted as Editor of The Burlington Magazine, 2015-16, and is now is Emeritus Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art and in 2005 was made a CBE for Services to Literature.

In May 2022, Thames & Hudson published The Real and the Romantic: English Art between Two World Wars. During the autumn of 2022, Frances Spalding continues her tour of the literary festivals. She will appear at the Cheltenham Literary Festival on the 13th October and at Wells Festival on the  22nd October. She is also talking about aspects of this book at the Buckingham History Festival ( 9th October),and at Newcastle's Lit & Phil (25th October).