Originally an illustrator and designer in his native Edinburgh, Flint moved south to work on the Illustrated London News. After war service he began painting professionally and settled on the style for which he is best known. From the 1950s onwards his prints of muscular, nude women draped improbably on beaches and riverbanks, became the essential wall covering of every British drawing room. Flint was elected to the Royal Academy and the Royal Watercolour Society as President for twenty years for which he was knighted.