Willie Anne Wright

• Name — Willie Anne Wright • Birth Name — Willie Anna Boschen • Born — 1924 • Birthplace — Richmond, Virginia, U.S. • Occupation — Photographer • Field — Pinhole photography • Training — College of William & Mary Virginia Commonwealth University • Spouse — John Wright Jr. • Children — 3 • Website — willieannewright.com

Willie Anne Wright was born Willie Anna Boschen, in Richmond, Virginia. Her father was a musician and sometime-artist. She graduated from the College of William & Mary in 1945 with a BS degree in Psychology, and from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1964 with an MFA in Painting. Wright notes that William & Mary fine arts professor Thomas Thorne was particularly influential to her as an undergraduate, both by providing access to art supplies during wartime and by selecting two of her watercolors to be exhibited at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in a 1944 exhibition. She later studied at the Maine photographic workshops in Rockport, Maine and the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. She married John "Jack" Wright Jr. and had three children.

Wright began her artistic career as a painter, teaching art classes at the Jewish Community Center, and was influenced by one of her painting instructors, Theresa Pollak. For a while, she experimented with printmaking. By 1973, she began to focus more and more on photography. Inspired by her surroundings and personal life, her first works incorporated images of her family, friends, and Civil War reenactors. Well known for her use of the old technique of pinhole, she is also an exceptional master in lensless photography, solar printing, and photograms. Some of her better known works include her "Civil War Redux" series, which focuses on local Civil War reenactors whom she followed around for several years, her "Pregnant Women" series, which features pregnant friends of hers, and "The Swimmer" series, which features women lounging by pool-sides or in pools. In 2023, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibited a retrospective of her work entitled Willie Anne Wright: Artist and Alchemist.