While she studied drawing for three years at the Vilhelm Kyhn College of Painting in Copenhagen, she developed her own style and was a pioneer in observing the interplay of different colors in natural light.

She also studied drawing in Paris at the atelier of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes along with Marie Triepcke, who would marry Peder Severin Krøyer, another Skagen painter.

[1] Anna Ancher was considered to be one of the great Danish pictorial artists by virtue of her abilities as a character painter and colorist.

[3][4] Ancher preferred to paint interiors and simple themes from the everyday lives of the Skagen people, especially fishermen, women, and children.

It is filled with displays of paintings by Michael and Anna Ancher, as well as by many other Skagen painters who made up their circle of friends.

[12] Anna and Michael Ancher were featured on the front side of the DKK1000 banknote, which came into circulation on 25 November 2004 and subsequently, was replaced.

The front of the banknote had a double portrait of Anna and Michael Ancher, derived from two 1884 paintings by Peder Severin Krøyer,[13][14] which originally hung on the walls in the dining room at Brøndums Hotel.