Anne had little formal art training–a course here and there along the way at the University of New Mexico and Philadelphia College of Art.
Oil painting was her first love, though she also worked in watercolor, acrylic, and pastel, and she loved to draw.
A severe allergy to all paint products halted her artistic career for many years and ultimately drove her to find ways of being artistically productive without endangering her health. Collage and printmaking turned out to be, for her, hypoallergenic mediums which offered just such opportunities.
“With collage, I was forced to forego my exacting realism. Thus my liability became my artistic salvation, a breakthrough into using abstraction to generate greater mood and intensity.” (2019 Artist’s Statement)
Anne Gates Yarnall (1934-2024) 