HARRY EPWORTH ALLEN (1894 - 1958)
In September 2021 I received an email from a reader of my blog who had come across my post on a Sheffield artist called Frank Saltfleet.
"I noticed your blog article on Frank Saltfleet. Have you ever thought of writing about his pupil Harry Epworth Allen? He's oddly little known in Sheffield, but better known outside the city and his works sell for up to £30,000. His surreal style didn't endear him to the Sheffield art establishment and unlike other cities Sheffield never bought any of his artworks during his lifetime. There's a good Wikipedia page about him and you'll find his artworks online.
However when I got around to researching the life and achievements of Harry I found that there was material on line and in print. There was an excellent article in the Sheffield Tribune and on the basis of that so I decided not to proceed with a more detailed review. However I did have the following information that was not readily available which will throw some light on Harry's domestic life.
Here they (Frank Saltfleet and Harry Epworth Allen) are together on holiday in Whitby in the 1930s,"
1901 Census
1911 Census
1939 National Register
"Painter, notably in tempera, especially of Derbyshire. Born in Sheffield, Allen attended King Edward VII School for boys, and then became a clerk in the steel works of Arthur Balfour, in his spare time attending Sheffield Technical School of Art. He served in the army in World War I, gaining the Military Medal for conspicuous gallantry. Although badly injured and having an artificial leg, Allen continued to paint and became Balfour’s confidential secretary. From 1931 he painted full-time and joined the new Yorkshire Group of Artists. He began exhibiting at the RA, and showed with RBSA and PS. He also travelled in Ireland and was elected a member of the RBA in 1935. Although Allen’s early work is conventionally realistic he soon developed his distinctive style of simplified landscape and figure studies, which eventually were shown abroad in Canada and America. In the early 1940s Allen published a series of articles in The Artist on landscape painting in which he expounded his approach. His work is in a number of public galleries, notably Sheffield, Wakefield, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Newport, as well as in Australia and New Zealand. There was a memorial show at Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, in 1959 and in 1986. Lived in Ecclesall, Sheffield"
From lissllewellyn.com/
Harry Epworth Allen Probate 1958
Sources
Sheffield Indexers
Ancestry - UK Census
Liss Llewelly
This page was last updated on 18/11/24 14:57