A forgotten painter returns

For almost a century, the paintings of a farmer's daughter called Anna lay forgotten in the cellar of a small museum. Now a young curator, Lucy, has brought them back into the light in an exhibition that everyone is talking about. Anna's story is as moving as her work: with no patron and no training, she taught herself to paint by copying pictures from a newspaper supplement.

The masterpiece of the show is a large portrait of her mother at the kitchen table. In the foreground, a bowl of apples is painted with a few quick strokes of the brush, while the background fades into grey. Her palette is limited to four or five colours, yet the light seems to come from inside the canvas. Few painters of her time depicted country women with such honesty.

Not every critic has been kind. One national paper panned the show, describing it as little more than hype built around a sad life story. I disagree: her portrayal of hard work and quiet love is honest, and it moved me deeply. A publisher is already preparing a book of her drawings, and a novelist is said to be writing a story with Anna as its protagonist. The exhibition runs until March, and I would urge anyone who lives near the museum to go. Do go early: on Sunday, the queue reached the end of the street.