Anne Walker

Anne Walker (born 1933) is an American artist and contemplative thinker, primarily known for printmaking and painting. In 2001, Walker was named a Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres by French Minister of Culture Catherine Tasca. Walker lives and works in Paris and has exhibited widely in France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, and the United States. Early life and education Walker was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1933. Walker graduated in 1955 from Smith College. She spent her junior year in Paris, working at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Montparnasse. In 1956 she returned to Paris to study with Johnny Friedlaender at his atelier; her first etchings were done there. Career Walker continued to make prints, create etchings, and a number of fine-press books in Paris. To date, she has made more than 330 prints, as well as a number of fine-press books illustrated with etchings. Since the 1960s Walker has been participating in group, collective, and solo exhibitions in France and abroad. In Paris, she has been involved in the Salon de Mai, the Salon de la Jeune Gravure Contemporaine and the Salon d'Automne, of which she was a member for a time. In 1986 Walker 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, which has allowed her to collaborate with poets and writers whom she admires, including Michel Butor, Kenneth Koch and Peter Davison, to name a few. Much of her book work is concerned with the language of color and is characterized by a lyricism that pairs well with literature.