Anne Desmet RA RWA RE
Born in Liverpool, England, in 1964, Anne Desmet has a BA and MA in Fine Art (Oxon); a Postgraduate Printmaking Diploma (Central School of Art, London); and was a Rome Scholar in Printmaking (1989-90). Specializing in wood engraving, linocut and mixed media printed collage, often of architectural/ metamorphosing subjects, Desmet has won 31 national and international awards for her work; has had over 20 solo exhibitions worldwide; and has works in more than 20 museum collections including (in the UK): the British Museum, the British Library, and Victoria and Albert Museum, which have all commissioned engravings from her. Her work is also in public collections in France, Russia, Poland, Italy, Finland, Brazil, China and the USA. Her first major retrospective exhibition, Anne Desmet: Towers & Transformations, was at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (1998); her second, Anne Desmet – Urban Evolution, was at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK (2008). Both exhibitions went on to tour seven or eight other UK museums and public galleries. From 2009-12, she produced a major new body of work analyzing the developing Olympic site in London; the resulting exhibition: Anne Desmet – Olympic Metamorphoses was shown at Hart Gallery, London, before touring various UK museums and public galleries between 2010-13. Published author of three printmaking books, Desmet was editor of Printmaking Today magazine from 1998-2013. In 2011 she was elected a member of the UK’s historic Royal Academy of Arts (RA), making her only the third wood engraver ever elected in the Academy’s 250-year history.