Annie French was an illustrator who was born in Glasgow in 1872. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art under Fra Newbery and the Belgian sybmbolist Jean Delville from 1886 to 1889. From 1908 she taught at the Glasgow School of Art’s ceramic decoration department, working there until 1912. She married the ceramic artist George Wooliscroft Rhead in 1914 and moved to London where she regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy.

French died in Jersey in 1965. Her work is now held in private collections with some examples in the Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries collection. In her work she used a strong linear technique in a style that combined vivid colours in confetti-like textures. Influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, Aubrey Beardsley and Jessie M. King, her drawings and watercolour illustrations, which featured in several books, postcards and greetings cards, are imaginative compositions filled with fantastical connotations.