About

A native of Cheltenham, England, Anne O'Hara attended the Gloucestershire College of Art, where she received her Diploma in Art and Design. She came to the United States in 1966, to study at the San Francisco Art Institute where she received an M.F.A. in sculpture. Additional study was done at San Jose State College, where she received her teaching credentials. She is a National Board Certified Teacher.

Now retired, Anne has received several awards during her teaching career, the most notable being a Surdna Fellowship in 2010, to study contemporary art and to produce new work. In 2011, she was selected as Mississippi Art Educator of the Year and in 2007 and 2012 was the Mississippi School of the Arts Teacher of the Year. In 2000, the Metro Jackson Mississippi Chamber of Commerce chose her as an Outstanding Metro Teacher. 

For the last nine years of her career she taught in the Visual Arts Department at the Mississippi School of the Arts in Brookhaven, MS. Previous experience included teaching in the Jackson Public Schools Academic and Performing Arts Complex, Jim Hill High School’s International Baccalaureate program and Milwaukee Public Schools. Additionally, from 1996-2003, she planned, and directed the Mississippi Museum of Art's summer program “Kaleidoscope”, Art Adventures for Creative Kids, in which she also taught.

Over the years, Anne always produced as much of her own work as possible. Since retiring, she is now able to devote several hours a week to exploring new ideas and developing new images. She created a series of mixed media pieces and charcoal drawings that were shown in 2012, both in Brookhaven, MS and later in Houston, TX. In 2013, she was awarded an Artist’s Fellowship from the Mississippi Arts Commission. Her drawings have been accepted into the Meridian Museum of Art’s Bi-State Competitive exhibition both in 2013 and 2014 when she was awarded “Best in Show”. Her work was also selected for the 2014 Mississippi Invitational at the Mississippi Museum of Art. She was recently informed that one of her drawings received an honorable mention in a competition sponsored by The Artist’s Magazine which could be published in the December issue.

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Her current series entitled Hidden Treasures, is partly inspired by the Baha’i writings. It attempts to convey through ambiguous nature based images, the idea that people are made up of many layers that are often not apparent at first encounter. 

Anne celebrated her 47th wedding anniversary this year. Her husband, Bruce O'Hara, is an Associate Professor of Art at Tougaloo College. She has two children and two grandchildren and a very large dog named Sadie.