'Fogento, near Cortaldo, Tuscany, in the Autumn', c1970
Anna Hornby (1914 - 1996) studied art in Florence with landscape and flower painter Aubrey Waterfield in 1934, and later that year enrolled at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London where she studied under Francis Ernest Jackson, graduating in 1940. Calligraphy was Anna's other great passion and through her interest in calligraphy and her association with the Society for Italic Handwriting she became acquainted with Alfred John Fairbank, whose portrait she painted (exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1961). Anna was also a member of the Art Works’ Guild and was elected member of the New English Art Club in 1971. She exhibited widely with no fewer than 13 pictures at the Royal Academy, additionally she exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours, The Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Royal Society of British Artists.