Nationality: Scottish
Anna Zinkeisen was born in Scotland, the younger sister of artist Doris Zinkeisen (1898-1991), she followed her sister to the Royal Academy Schools, winning a scholarship when she was just 15. There she studied sculpture and was awarded silver and bronze medals. Her first Royal Academy exhibit was shown at the precocious age of 18 and together with Doris, Anna had something of a celebrity status in the swinging London of the 20s and 30s. One of her first commissions was from Wedgwood, designing jasperware cameo relief plaques which won a silver medal at the Exposition des Art Decoratifs in Paris in 1925.
Anna was in demand as an book illustrator and poster designer for London Transport and others, and became a portrait painter and muralist. In 1935 she worked with Doris to paint murals on the ocean liner RMS Queen Mary, they followed this up with murals on the liner Queen Elizabeth in 1941. During WWII she combined work as an auxiliary nurse with medical art, recording scenes in the hospital and pathological illustrations of injuries for the Royal College of Surgeons.
Her career included portraiture with subjects including HRH Prince Philip, Lord Beaverbrook and Sir Alexander Fleming, she also produced further murals with Doris, produced landscapes, still lifes and also versions of the carriage scenes which Doris is so famed for. After the war, both Zinkeisen sisters preferred to move away from the London spotlight, Anna settled at Burgh near Woodbridge.
Anna Zinkeisen’s work at auction reflects the range of media which she embraced, her travel posters from the 1930s are highly collectable and can make four figure sums, her oils often achieve low-mid thousands with portraits commanding a premium.
