Celebrated printmaker Anna Alcock was known just as much for her ‘incredible’ artwork as for her altruism in the local community
By Marco Marcelline
Tributes have been paid to a much loved and “fearless” Walthamstow artist and printmaker who passed away on Saturday 26th April.
Anna Alcock, originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, had lived in Walthamstow for more than two decades before her death. She was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer in 2023.
Anna is survived by her two children, Joshua and Isabella Alcock-Reeve.
The South African artist was known for her charged prints that explored complex issues from environmental catastrophe, political and social upheaval, and personal trauma.
She was regularly inspired by iconic paintings that she would turn on their head.
One such artwork Triumph of Death, described as a “meditation on death”, borrows from the composition of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting of the same name.
Another artwork, The Bathers, is a feminist reimagining of Cezanne’s Les Grandes Baigneuses. Shown in the Royal Academy in summer 2024, Alcock’s print subverted the original objectifying focus of the female bodies, instead showing them at peace with and in support of one another.
Through the years Anna had her art shown at venues across the borough.
Anna’s exhibition with three other local female artists, titled Four Women in Aquelarre, was on show at Walthamstow’s Winns Gallery four times between 2020 and 2024.
Meanwhile her 2022 show, Spring Awakening, was inspired by the over 50 varieties of wildflowers in Walthamstow Wetlands.
At the time, Anna had told the Echo: “I hope it might serve as a reminder and wake up call to us all of just how important it is for us to protect the natural world which surrounds us.”
And in November 2024, Anna and her children held a debut family exhibition in Winns Gallery which platformed prints they had made over the years. Called Threads That Bind, the exhibition centered around the “timeless” threads of family.
Isabella, 20, says she has been inspired to follow in her mother’s footsteps in becoming a printmaker.
She told the Echo: “My mum was the greatest artist I’ve ever met. She was massively inspiring. Growing up, we used to sit and do lino in the living room and it was very meditative. She used to take me and my brother with her to the studio, to exhibitions, to her classes all the time.
“You could ask her anything to do with art; she knew everything. Her mind was filled with so much knowledge and she loved learning. She was a teacher to all.”
Sharing was an intrinsic aspect of Anna’s artistry, friend and collaborator Kirsten Schmidt says.
“She always included people. She was a very altruistic person, and she put so much time towards making a difference for others.”
Those efforts were exemplified through the workshops she delivered for children and young people, and the low-cost health and wellbeing group she led from her Blackhorse Road studio, where people from all walks of life would come together and learn printmaking.
Kirsten and Anna set up their Blackhorse Road studio Inky Cuttlefish in 2007, which Anna continued to run after Kirsten moved on.
Kirsten continued: “She was an amazing friend and got me to do things I wouldn’t have otherwise done. For one, she dragged me out of bed at 7am to go swimming in Hertfordshire and I’m really not a morning person.
“She also really inspired me to think bigger. There was never a day where she didn’t work on her art. It was great to be around that – it helped me a lot.”
Friend Martin Adams added: “She was a wonderful person, she took her art seriously, and she wanted to release the inner artist in everybody.”
Anna’s passing prompted an outpouring of tributes from all corners of Walthamstow artistic community. Laura Kerry, from Artillery CIC said: “Anna did some big stuff, like building creative resources for the whole community to use including Inky Cuttlefish Print Studios and Gnome House Community Centre, but she also quietly did thousands of things out of kindness and humanity behind the scenes.
“She did the stuff that glues us together, which we can often feel too busy for these days. I hope I can honour her by remembering to pass on her acts of generosity.”
In a tribute on Instagram, Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy wrote: “[I am] deeply saddened that we have lost the creative force that was Anna Alcock to our Walthamstow community. Her beautiful screen and block prints weave their way across our walls – whether capturing the fountains at the Town Hall or telling the story of the Coppermills. I shall always remember how she lit up talking about the processes involved in creating her works.
“…Above all, it is her love for her family and pride in her children’s artwork when I last saw her displaying it that will stay with me – my heart goes out to them at this time of loss.”
You can donate to a fundraiser for Anna’s family here
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