Nancy Jane Burton RWS (1891–1972) was born at Insh in Inverness-shire in the Scottish Highlands. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1909 to 1915, taking day classes in drawing and painting and evening classes in lithography. She studied under the painter of animals and birds John Murray Thomson RSA (1885–1974). Her occupation during this time is listed as an art mistress.
She taught art at a school in Callander and for a time lived at Aberfoyle, Stirling before moving to a farm at Tyndrum in Perthshire. In 1932 she sailed to India to visit her sister, initially intending to stay for six months. She remained for the next four years, making a home at Rawalpindi in modern-day Pakistan, and travelling extensively through northern India (now part of Pakistan), Afghanistan and Kashmir.
From the mid-1920s, Burton was a member of the Glasgow Society of Lady Artists and won their Lauder Award in 1924, in 1931 and in 1946 and 1953. She was a prolific exhibitor, especially with the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts but also with the Royal Scottish Academy, the Aberdeen Artists Society and the Royal Scottish Watercolour Society. Works by Burton were also shown at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.
She was close friends with 'Glasgow Girls' artists Kate Cameron and Helen Lamb.
