Annie E. A. Walker

Annie E. Anderson Walker (née Annie E. Anderson) (October 5, 1855 – June 9, 1929) was an African-American artist, known for her portraits and her work in pastels, and for being one of the first African-American women to complete an institutional art education in the United States and exhibit at the Paris Salon.

Biography

Born in Flatbush, New York, on October 5, 1855, to Nancy Cassidy and Francis Anderson, Walker was the youngest of five children. She entered the teaching profession at an early age, teaching in Jacksonville, Florida and Orrville, Alabama. After passing examinations before the Selma Board of Education, she was appointed a teacher in the Burwell Academy in Selma, where she taught for several years. In 1875, she married Selma lawyer Thomas Walker in Dallas, Alabama. In 1890, she moved to Washington, D.C., and began private lessons in drawing and painting. After a year of private lessons, Walker studied at the Cooper Union from 1892 to 1895 and was a pupil of Thomas Eakins and John Henry Twachtman, who influenced Walker's luminous, impressionistic approach. She was honored by being chosen to exhibit her work at the 1896 Paris Salon, the official juried art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The work exhibited was a pastel drawing entitled La Parisienne, a portrait of a woman now in the Howard University collection. After her studies, Walker traveled to London, Switzerland, and Italy. Walker returned to the United States in December 1896, settling in Washington, D.C. She continued to paint and draw while balancing her responsibilities as the wife of a successful lawyer. Art historian Tritobia Hayes Benjamin said Walker's "...tireless courage, determination, and persistence in becoming an artist in the face of racism and sexism..."

Exhibitions 1896 Annual Paris Salon, Paris, France