Born in 1943, Auckland, New Zealand Gretchen Albrecht graduated from the Auckland University School of Fine Arts in 1963 and 1981 was awarded the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship at the University of Otago, Dunedin.

She was awarded grants from the QEII Arts Council 1976, 1978 and 1986. Albrecht has participated in many travelling group exhibitions among them; NZ/NY (New York 1983), NZ Art Today (Chicago 1986), Distance Looks Our Way (Spain and the Netherlands 1993), Reclaiming the Madonna (England) and has had two solo exhibitions in London. ‘AFTERnature’, a survey of her work curated by the Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui, toured New Zealand in 1986 and in 1998 the Sarjeant Gallery curated a second Albrecht exhibition, ‘Crossing the Divide’, which explores the link between Gretchen’s prints and paintings. Highly regarded as a colourist, Albrecht continues to engage with abstraction in a personal and lyrical manner.