Anne Desmet RA.

Born in Liverpool, England in 1964, Anne Desmet has a BA and MA in Fine Art (Oxon), a Postgraduate Printmaking (1989 - 1990) and was a Rome Scholar in Printmaking (1989-90). Specialising 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 works are also in public collections in France, Russia, Poland, Italy, Finaland, Brazil, China and the USA. Her first major retropsective exhibtion, Anne Desmet: Towers and Transformations was at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (1998), her second, Anne Desmet - Urban Evlolution' was at the Whitworth Art GAllery, Manchester UK (2008). Both exhibtions went on to tour seven or eight other UK museums and public gallereies. From 2009 - 12 she produced a major new body of work analyzing the developing Olympic site in London: the resulting exibition: Anne Desmet - Olympic Metamorphoses was shown at Hart Gallery, London before touring various UK museums and public galleries between 2010 - 2013. Published author of three printmaking books, Anne Desmet was for 15 years (from 1998-2013) editor of internationally renowned Printmaking Today magazine. She is an elected member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE) and the Society of Wood Engravers (SWE) and 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 to be elected in the Royal Academy's 250 year history. She lives and works in Hackney, East London with her husband and two children.