Herbert Lust, Author

Chernow's work focuses on American film genres from the 1930s and 1940s. She is hooked on old movies, exploring their every visual aspect. Chernow culls elements from original sources then alters the images: she builds the set, directs the drama and relates it to a larger social issue. This process is addressed with original vision, affection for subject matter and accomplished craftsmanship. A gift for drawing is evident at the heart of these prints. From her invention has come this group of memorable impressions......private moments, engaging us in a contemporary narrative with a remembered past. As we look at her entire print production we experience an energetic address of the human condition. In all her work we feel her understanding of the longing and dreaming experienced by the characters inhabiting these prints.

Chernow's aesthetic vision defies pigeon-holing. She works in the tradition of artists who can be termed 'painter/printmaker', showing a dedication and consistency of production as did Reginald Marsh and Isabel Bishop.


Jeanine Basinger,
Corwin Fuller Professor of Film Studies,
Curator Cinema Archives - Wesleyan University.

Chernow's images resonate beyond their subject matter..... the richness of Chernow's work lies in this resonance. Like the movies she depicts, her work seems to exclude the rest of the world and creates a private moment with the viewer. Her art is intimate. In looking at it, I feel that I am seeing private things that only I can see. And that, of course, is the same illusion the great films of the 1930s and 1940s provided for movie-goers --the sense of shared emotions between viewer and frame.

Chernow's work is about both the movie women and the real-life women. What is most interesting is that she gracefully and unpretentiously connects the two, gently showing us the relationship between the women in the movies and women who went to the movies.


Carol Pulin, Director
The American Print Alliance

...the obvious affection Chernow shows for her characters is itself seductive......The inextricable union of visual form and content creates style, and Chernow and her starlets all delights in that 'silver screen' world, where insistence on the artificial actually does create the real.

..we do see Chernow's women as alive, about to step out of the frame and continue with their day.....

Copyright 2005, Ann Chernow, All rights reserved.