The Artist

Anne Meggitt was an artist whose life was a journey, capturing otherwise unseen glimpses of her natural environment on canvas, on her travels the world over.

Anne was born in Florida in 1930, to British parents who moved back to England shortly after her birth. Anne had an idyllic childhood where her family lived on a hill surrounded by larch trees in a country house. It was a childhood overflowing with the wonder of nature, its flora and landscapes.

During the war years she and her mother would take day trips to London to see galleries and museums. It was safe in London during the day, but at night the bombing was very dangerous. After attending boarding school she studied painting at Reading University, with J. Anthony Betts, a pupil and friend of Walter Sickert. Later she taught art classes, and studied at the Cordon Bleu school in London.

While still in her 20’s, her life took a dramatic turn. Marriage took Anne to start a new life in Swaziland, Africa. For the next twenty-five years she travelled the globe, raising five children in exotic, primitive and isolated conditions throughout the African bush, and then in remote North Borneo.

Eventually the family moved to Regina, Saskatchewan and although their marriage ended, her art making again blossomed when she returned to her painting at the University of Regina, studying under Ted Godwin, a prominent Canadian artist and one of the ‘Regina Five’. Anne attended Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops and found the critiques and the outdoor painting within the Northern Boreal Forest rich and invigorating. She was also drawn to paint the creeks and coulees of Lumsden and west towards Moose Jaw, located within the Qu’ Appelle Valley.

Anne continued to travel outside Canada, many times to visit and travel with her children who live throughout the world, returning home again to capture the subject matter related to those trips on canvas. She has painted vastly different terrain from the Outback of Australia, and China, and from the Orkney Islands at the top of Great Britain to the islands of the Mediterranean.

Anne spent her seven last years in Victoria, British Columbia, making her final departure on 25 September, 2020. She has left a body of work inspired not only by the magnificent coastal rainforest of Vancouver Island but the world over. Her journey was inspired indeed.