Sculptor and graphic artist Annette Rowdon was born Annette Fischer into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany on 16 October 1931 but grew up in America. She studied German literature at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, before moving to London, where she attended the Central School of Arts and Crafts (1954-58), afterwards studying sculpture at Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. She held a residency at Wilson College, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania (1978) and was Assistant Professor of art at Marlboro College, Vermont (1980-85), before studying for a teacher's certificate in London and going on to teach at Chelsea School of Art and the Leisure Centre, Hammersmith. In 1983 she spent eight months in West Berlin and subsequently lived for several months each year in Pietrasanta, Italy, where she worked and taught and supervised the casting of her bronzes.
Rowdon is known primarily as a sculptor in bronze, plaster, clay, stone and marble. Her portrait busts are in a number of collections and museums including Sir Robert Mayer (1980) and Sir David Willcocks (1984, both the Royal College of Music) and publisher Samuel Fischer (National Museum, Marbach). She was also interested in dance, producing work in this genre focused on the ballet, as well as an extensive series on the classical Indian dancer and choreographer Pandit Ram Gopal, who was also a close friend; her other works often had a spiritual dimension. She exhibited at the Alwin Gallery, London (1967), Galerie Aix, Stockholm (1977), Comfort Gallery, Haverford, Pennsylvania (1978) and the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin-Kreuzberg in 1983. She held two joint exhibitions at Ben Uri: the first in 1979 with American artist Edward Toledano, and the second in 1986 with the painter Peter Baer, displaying 21 sculptures and ceramics in a variety of media at the latter; her work was also included in open exhibitions in 1979 and 1985. Four years before her death she also exhibited at Livorno, Italy in 1992. Annette Rowdon died in London, England on 28 May 1996. Her work is in collections including the Royal Ballet Collection, The Commonwealth Institute Collection, The Royal College of Music, and the Schiller National Museum in Germany.
