Born in Northern Ireland, Anne McCaughey attended Brighton art college and specialised in Fine Art Illustration. While there, she was represented in several European travelling exhibitions of prize-winning illustrations. She studied art for six years in total, taking the opportunity to do a postgraduate qualification in nineteenth and twentieth century Art History.

After graduation, McCaughey lived and worked in London, creating illustrations for Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Honey. She returned to live in Ireland in the late eighties and moved fulltime into painting and lecturing. In 2001 she moved to be in Australia to be with her partner.

McCaughey exhibits regularly, nationally and internationally and has had thirty solo exhibitions in England, Ireland, Australia, the United States and France. Her work features in private collections worldwide and she is represented in the private collections of HRH Prince Charles, the Duke and Duchess of Abercorn and U2 among others. Her work is in the public collections of the Northern Bank, Ulster Bank, BBC1 Northern Ireland, the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland Tourist Board, the Royal Victoria Hospital, Sussex University, CBC Fremantle, Ursula Frayne College and John Curtin College of the Arts.