Anita Baarns

Oil Painting and Printmaking

Anita Baarns was born in Fontainebleu, France in 1958 but moved to the country of her parent's citizenship, the Netherlands, in 1963.   In 1988, after being educated in Nijmegen, Holland, she came to the United states and entered Northern Virginia Community College. There she majored in studio fine arts and received an A.A.S. degree, summa cum laude, in May 1991.  She entered the University of Maryland in the Fall of 1991, majored in studio fine arts, and was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in May 1993. 
 
In 1992, she was granted a United States Patent for a "Process For Creating Artworks By Application Of Crayon And Ink". Her work has appeared on the cover of The Chronicle of the Horse, and her oil paintings have been exhibited at the American Academy of Equine Art in Lexington, Kentucky in 1995 and 1996. She was appointed the Official Artist for the 1996 and 1998 International Gold Cup Races held at Great Meadow, Virginia.  She has established her studio at Meadow View Farm in Loudoun County, Virginia, where she rides dressage, hunts with the Piedmont Foxhounds and the Fairfax Hunt, and specializes in painting horses in their natural surroundings. 
 
Recently, she has been busy creating oil paintings by commission, including paintings of horses, hounds and dogs for their owners, as well as portraits of those animals together with their owners.  This Spring, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States, and won the Jean Bowman Award for "best-in-show" entered in the exhibition of Sporting Art sponsored by The Museum Of Hounds And Hunting, Morven Park, Virginia.