Annie E. A. Walker

La Parisienne, pastel of 1896, in the collection of Howard University

Annie E. Anderson Walker (1855–1929) was an American artist, known for her portraits and for her work in pastels.

Born in Flatbush, Brooklyn,[1] Walker taught art in Florida and Alabama before marrying Selma lawyer Thomas Walker in 1890 and moving to Washington, D.C.[2] After having private lessons in art,[1] she initially enrolled at the Corcoran School of Art, but was refused entry when it was discovered that she was black. Walker was acquainted with abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and he wrote a letter to the administration on her behalf asking that she be reconsidered, but they would not change their decision.[2] Instead she studied from 1892 to 1895 under Thomas Eakins and John Henry Twachtman at the Cooper Union before traveling to Paris, where she lived from 1896 to 1902.[3][4] While there she studied at the Académie Julian, likely the first African-American woman so to do.[3] She was honored by being chosen to exhibit her work at the 1896 Paris Salon, the annual juried show of the French Academy. The work exhibited was a pastel drawing entitled La Parisienne, a pastel portrait of a woman now in the collection of Howard University.[5] Walker returned to the United States in late 1896, where she settled in Washington, D.C.[4] She died in that city in 1929. Walker was noted especially for her pastels, which were compared with those of Alice Pike Barney, and which were shown at Howard University.[6] Few of her works were known to exist in 1975.[7]

Two years after returning from Paris, Walker suffered a nervous breakdown and ceased her artistic work, remaining an invalid, homebound, until her death.[2]

Further reading

Farrington, Lisa E. (2011). Creating their own image : the history of African-American women artists (1st Oxford University Press pbk. ed. ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199767601. 

References

  1. 1 2 Darlene Clark Hine; Kathleen Thompson (1999). A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America. Broadway Books. pp. 188–. ISBN 978-0-7679-0111-6.
  2. 1 2 3 E., Farrington, Lisa. Creating their own image : the history of African-American women artists. pp. p.52. ISBN 9780199767601. OCLC 712600445.
  3. 1 2 "WALKER, Annie E.A. (1855–1929), Painter, pastellist : Benezit Dictionary of Artists – oi". doi:10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.b00204462. Retrieved 24 January 2017.
  4. 1 2 Andrew J. Cosentino (17 November 1983). The Capital Image: Painters in Washington, 1800–1915. Smithsonian. ISBN 978-0-87474-338-8.
  5. ↑ Walker, Annie E. A. (1 January 1896). "La Parisienne". Retrieved 31 March 2017 – via siris-artinventories.si.edu Library Catalog.
  6. ↑ The Crisis Publishing Company, Inc. (April 1942). The Crisis. The Crisis Publishing Company, Inc. pp. 117–. ISSN 0011-1422.
  7. ↑ Encore American & Worldwide News. Tanner Publications Company. 1975.
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