Anne Walker

Anne Walker

A native New Englander, Anne Walker was born in 1933, in Boston. She attended Smith College where she studied woodcuts with Seong Moy. She spent her junior year in Paris, working at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Montparnasse as well as in the studio of Jacques Ernotte. After graduation, she returned to Paris in 1956 to study in Johnny Friedlaender’s atelier.

She has made more than 330 plates, as well as a number of fine-press books illustrated with etchings. Walker’s graphic work has been exhibited worldwide since 1956 and is in public and private collections in Europe and the United States.

In 1986 she took up painting, using gouache combined with pastel, a technique that has predominated in her work since then. With these materials she began exploring the format of the artist’s book, either one-of-a-kind or in very limited editions which has allowed her to collaborate with poets and writers whom she admires—both living and from the past. Much of her book work is concerned with the language of color and is characterized by a lyricism—sometimes playful, sometimes elegiac—that pairs well with literature. Since 1956 Anne Walker’s work has been recognized in both group shows and solo exhibitions in France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia and the United States and her painted books have been acquired by major libraries and museums in those countries.