One of the finest talents of the Nantucket Art Colony, Anne Ramsdell Congdon began her artistic career painting delicate watercolor landscapes during summer visits to the island with her Nantucket-descended husband Dr. Charles D. Congdon. After early studies in Paris, she trained with an assistant of William Merritt Chase before coming under the tutelage of Charles Woodbury in Boston and in Perkins Cove (near Ogunquit, Maine). Woodbury’s use of bold colors, choppy, open brushstrokes, and heavy diagonals would be a major influence on the development of Congdon’s style prior to her work with Frank Swift Chase.

Congdon became an accomplished watercolorist and member of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston. She chose to withdraw to private life to raise two boys, and manage an antique shop in her home town of Nashua, New Hampshire, where her husband was a practicing surgeon. Congdon was the daughter of New Hampshire Governor George and Eliza Wilson Ramsdell. After a hiatus of over twenty years, Congdon returned to painting on Nantucket in 1926, newly inspired during her summer visits by the burgeoning Art Colony. When her husband retired in 1930, the couple moved to Nantucket on a permanent basis, occupying a home at 5 Orange Street.

Congdon soon befriended many of the leading figures of the Art Colony and became a regular student of Frank Swift Chase. Under Chase’s influence, her style developed from more thinly painted, smoothly finished works to heavily built-up canvases in which strong shading, sweeping blocks of color, and vigorous impasto create a freshness and vitality characteristic of her evolving style. Her typical subjects were the waterfront wharves, the Creeks, and the range of open pastures, moors, ponds, and lonely farms scattered across the island. According to tradition, she completed her paintings without revision. If they did not satisfy her, she would abandon them entirely.

Congdon exhibited regularly at the Easy Street Gallery through the 1940s, as well as showing periodically at the Hope Chest by the footbridge in Siasconset and in Annie Alden Folger’s shop on Pearl Street. She was instrumental in the early years of the Artists Association of Nantucket and the Kenneth Taylor Galleries, where she was included in 1946 in a retrospective of five artists “of national importance” (including Henry S. Eddy, Edgar Jenney, Emerson Tuttle, and Eastman Johnson). She remained actively involved in the community, serving as a trustee of the Old People’s Home, a member of the NHA, and a founder of the Hospital Thrift Shop. Her legacy was in large measure preserved through the efforts of her son, Robert D. Congdon, who collected her works for posterity.

In 1946, the Artist's Association of Nantucket mounted a retrospective exhibition of five artists deemed to be "of national importance." They were Henry S. Eddy, Edgar Jenney, Emerson Tuttle, Anne Ramsdell Congdon and Eastman Johnson. Today, Congdon's expressive, wet-to-wet brushwork in heavy impastos, her brilliant, sometimes exaggerated color, and her impeccable massing of vibrant shapes eloquently express the voice of an artist of consequence.

Born in Nashua NH to Governor George A and Eliza Wilson Ramsdell, Anne Ramsdell Congdon began her art studies at the age of seven. Her endeavor continued at a private school in Worcester, MA, and as a young woman, continued at the Académie Delecluse in Paris. Back in the States again, she studied under Rhoda Holmes Nichols, an assistant of William Merritt Chase, in Chase's summer art school near Ogunquit, Maine.

While her earliest work - through 1902 - was in watercolor, plein air painting became Congdon's focus, and she began composing her palette in oils. Further studies with renowned American Impressionist painter, Charles Woodbury were definitive in the further development of Congdon's painterly style. One of the most highly respected teaching artists of his day, Woodbury trained his students to see - that is, to strengthen their capacity for both observation and their memory. He challenged his students doggedly to be decisive; to paint motion. Congdon rose to the challenge.  Congdon soon established a studio in one of the cold-water shanties along Commercial Wharf. The shanties were suddenly being populated by artists,  and Frank Swift Chase, whom the AAN described as "dean of Island painters and teachers" was leading the settlement. Amid a community of like minded artists, and under Chase's influence, her canvases grew larger and her expression more exaggerated; reminiscent of Van Gogh and the Post Impressionists.

Working in the pleinaire tradition, Congdon painted en situ. From Woodbury, she'd learned to complete each painting in one sitting. If, when she returned to her studio the finished painting was not satisfactory, it was disposed of. Congdon painted - and celebrated - Nantucket's wharves, her moors, her creeks, ponds and pastures.

Congdon's paintings are among the permanent collections of the Nantucket Historical Association, The Artist's Association of Nantucket, and the Egan Maritime Institute. She was an active member of the Artists Association, a leader in the development of Nantucket's annual Sidewalk Art Show, as well as in various other civic volunteer capacities, including Trustee of the NHA and a co-founder of the Hospital Thrift Shop. Additionally, works have been exhibited in Manchester and Nashua, New Hampshire, Lowell, Mass., and at the Boston Society of Independent Artists.