Anne Purkiss was born in Chemnitz, Germany in 1959 and graduated from Leipzig University in 1983 with a degree in photography and journalism.

She worked for an advertising agency before moving to England in 1984.

After four years at the London bureau of Associated Press, she became a freelance photographer in 1988.

Her commissions include regular work for government departments and agencies such as the Countryside Agency.

She had held several exhibitions of her work both in Germany and England. Public collections keeping her photographs include the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Archives in Windsor, the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds and the University of Reading's Museum of Rural Life.