Six months after his death at age 70 in June, one of Canberra’s most eccentric personalities threw a posthumous farewell party by the lake on Monday, complete with a fireworks display.

Frank Arnold, a bon viveur and such a connoisseur of red wine that he was once written up by CityNews’s Richard Calver, he was famous for his brilliantly lurid jackets, his extravagant lifestyle and his partiality for Porsches.

Trained in architecture at Canberra College of Advanced Education from 1974 to 1976, he went on to found Canberra’s first major graphic design studio, Quantum Ideas Bureau in 1979.

As well, together with his friend, the late festival director Domenic Mico, he was deeply involved in enterprises such as Canberry Fair and the Backstage Café, becoming a stalwart of the Canberra arts scene, creating graphic designs for the Canberra Theatre, Ql2 Dance and Muse magazine, while often acting as an art auctioneer and serving for several years as chair of M16 Art Space.

An irrepressible ideas man, he set up his graphic design studio and home in what he called the Spanish Hacienda on the corner of Furneaux and Bougainville streets, Manuka.

Out and about in the local community Arnold was an inveterate conversationalist and knew so many people that he became known as the unofficial Mayor of Manuka.

Never inclined to modesty, he styled himself the World-Famous François, and did indeed seem to tread the world stage, whether taking a flying trip to Paris to see a Leonard Cohen concert or as, while staying in the Hotel Villa Medici Roma, he made friends with the famous building-wrapper, Christo, who had invited him home.

Such stories abounded on Monday when, following his final wishes, his comrades staged a farewell party at The Marion, Regatta Point, to tell stories of the “Chief Jester who made things entertaining” and to see him out with fireworks as he had stipulated—“not with a whimper but with a bang”.

Frank William Arnold, October 9, 1953-June 13, 2024.