ANN GRIFFIN BERNSTORFF

PORTALS LTD

CHICAGO

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Ann Griffin-Bernstorff was born and raised in Limerick, Ireland, and lives today in a handsome Georgian house in the South of Ireland. She has three adult children. Ann has an exceptionally fine collection of antique dolls, toys and costumes, which also provide inspiration and reference for her paintings.

Ann was trained in France as a horticulturist. In 1963 she won the Taylor Art Scholarship to study at the Atelier Yves Brayer and Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Later she returned to Dublin where she trained and worked as a picture restorer for the next five years until she met her late husband. Count Gunner Bernstorff of Denmark .

Ann's influences are diverse. She admires Botticelli, the Italian primitives, early Flemish painters and the Limbourg Brothers. Her paintings of children owe something to the work of 18th and 19th century American itinerant painters, with their portraits of plump, pale figures with large, flat faces, who peer out of elaborate miniaturized adult clothes.

She combines her ability to paint excellent likenesses with her rich imagination. Ann portrays her subjects as characters in her own idiosyncratic world. The result is much more fun than many "academic" portraits. One of Ann's paintings is included in the National Irish Portrait Gallery. Currently Griffin-Bernstorff is the historian and Artist creating the cartoons for a major tapestry to commemorate Ireland's Norman heritage. See link for important details: www.rostapestry.com

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