About

Biography

Born in 1961, Annie graduated from Dun Laoghaire College of Art & Design (IADT) in 1979 with a Diploma in Design for Communications.

She began working in the Design Department at RTÉ and Tyne Tees Television and various independent TV productions for Channel Four. This was followed by a decade working in the Art Department on feature films in Ireland, Britain and America.

Around 1991 Annie left the Film & TV industry to concentrate on illustrating and cartooning full time. 

She specialises in highly detailed pen and ink drawings with the emphasis on detail. She is particular and punctual, and can work to extremely tight deadlines.

Annie has won a number of Awards: The Alfred Beit Award in 1993 & 1994, The NCEA Patent Practicioners’ Award 1994, and the Illustrators’ Guild Best Book Illustration Award 2003 & 2004.

The entire collection of Original Illustrations, notes, sketches, drafts and ephemera from Annie’s 2024 Graphic Novel “The Late Night Writers Club” was recently added to the National Library of Ireland’s permanent Cartoon & Illustration Archive.

https://www.nli.ie/news-stories/news/nli-acquires-illustrations-annie-wests-late-night-writers-club

https://blog.nli.ie/index.php/2012/02/10/yeats-in-love-joyce-skateboards-and-dreamboat-laureate/

In May 2024 the entire collection of original Illustrations, drafts and notes from her 2014 book “Yeats in Love” was accessioned by The Library at Trinity College Dublin.

https://libguides.tcd.ie/blogs/3000/illustrator-annie-west-donates-drawings-to-library-of-trinity-college-dublin

What People Say

“I love Annie’s mischievous eye, her sense of humour, the exploding colour of her illustrations. And a curious thing: her work manages to be both puckishly irreverent and mythologising at the same time.”
—Mike Scott, The Waterboys 

“I love Annie West’s work; it’s delicious, insightful, humane and, when called for, savagely satirical.”
—Lenny Abrahamson

“Annie West is a remarkable and individual artist with a sense of fun who combines skill in draftsmanship and colouring with a sly insight into literature.”
—Senator David Norris

“Annie West is taking on the cartoon world combining wonderful artistic talent with an awesome, wry humour. Her excellent and hilarious work ranks with Steinberg, Wilson and Larson atop the world of the absurd.”
—US Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley 

“The Late Night Writers Club is a charmed and moving love letter to the great Irish scribblers and the National Library. Annie West’s warm and fastidious artwork brings Dublin to life as seldom before. A lovely stained glass window of a book.”
—Ed O’Loughlin

“Yeats in Love: ‘A gorgeous, irreverent book’
—The Sunday Business Post