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Anna Zemánková (1908-1986) was born in Czech republic. She worked as a dentist and had her own practice. In her free time she liked to paint, especially landscapes.

Her later years were affected by personal crisis and after several years of focus on her family life, she slowly resumed painting.

Anna Zemánková is an internationally established Art brut personality. Her works are already in the collections of the Centre Pompidou and MoMA. Her legacy springs from the innermost depths. Self taught, she devised her own methodologies of creation - self belief and a commitment to her own ingenuity became the driving force and she took great pride in this approach: “ I grow flowers that don’t grow anywhere else.” Her choice of techniques was rather improvised and impulsive. She would use cooking oil to increase the transparency of pastels. Tempera would be combined with ink and ballpoint pen overlay. In later works, she would perforate, emboss, embroider and apply crochet objects as well as work with textile and paper collage. Each added element was infused with symbolic meaning, surpassing what nature creates, towards a new level of beauty and perfection. 

For Anna Zemánková, the process of creation was a magical rite and ultimately a primary purpose of life itself.