Anne Ryan

Anne Ryan (1989-1954) was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. Although working predominantly in painting and drawing, she took imaginative departure from the abstract collage of Kurt Schwitters later in life. Ryan was one of the oldest women associated with the New York school, exhibiting in Castelli’s 1951 Ninth Street Show. 

Alongside her art, Ryan was also an avid poet, producing a series of poems in the late 1930s and 40s called Lines to a Young Painter. Hence, her art is often remarked upon for its interrelation between visual art and literature. Hence, collage became a theme across genres: when admiring Schwitter’s work, she “recognised the visual equivalent of her sonnets – discrete images packed together in an extremely compressed space.”

Anne Ryan has exhibited widely, including at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Whitney, New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Her art is in several prominent public collections, such as the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, and MOMA, New York. She died in 1954.