Anja Kroencke

http://www.anjakroencke.com/

Anja was born in 1968 in Vienna, Austria.

As a child, she demonstrated her artistic talent by drawing on the walls of her home and in her parent's books. She developed this early promise by spending most of her free time in coffee houses and sketching all the people around her, smoking and drinking coffee.
Early influences were Picasso, Schiele, the art of the "Wiener Werkstaette" and the primitive art of the South Pacific.

After graduating in 1987 from the College for Textile & Design in Vienna, Anja pursued a career in Graphic Design. She worked at a few design studios before moving on in 1990 to become an Art Director at GGK, one of Austria's largest advertising agencies.

On a visit to New York, she helplessly fell in love with the energy and chaos of the city and moved the following year in 1994.
For the next 3 years she worked in various design studios and agencies as a design director while at the same time she began illustrating on a part-time basis. Her work was so well received that Anja decided to devote herself full time to her illustration career in 1997.