Francis Unwin was born in Stalbridge, Dorset; he studied at Winchester School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art, London. He travelled widely in Europe, visiting Egypt in 1908 making drawings of the interior of tombs for an American periodical. In the early 1920s the consumption from which he suffered took him to Switzerland to convalesce and where he made many studies of the mountains, including the Maloja Set of mountain scenes.

Further reading:
Kenneth Guichard, British Etchers 1850-1940, Robin Garton, London 1977