Albert Arthur Allen (May 8, 1886 – January 25, 1962) was an American figure photographer and film director known for nude portraiture.

Biography

Allen was born to a wealthy New England family in 1886, and was educated in Boston. At the age of twenty-one, he moved to California and spent years traveling and studying art. In 1916, he opened the Allen Art Studios in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

, where he devoted his efforts to refining photographic techniques. The studio later became known as the Allen Institute of Fine and Applied Art, before it was destroyed by a fire in 1925. The following year, Allen rebuilt the studio and called it the Classic Motion Picture Corporation, a venture that lasted two years before declaring bankruptcy. A motorcycle accident in 1923 left Allen permanently disabled, but he continued to work. His nude photographs were considered scandalous by American standards during the

Roaring Twenties The Roaring Twenties, sometimes stylized as Roaring '20s, refers to the 1920s decade in music and fashion, as it happened in Western world, Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultura ...

. He was indicted for sending obscene materials through interstate mail, and spent years in litigation. 147 3 photographs august 2023 albert arthur allen the female figure series i lama auction

147 3 photographs august 2023 albert arthur allen the female figure series i lama auction

Little is known about Allen's later life. His first commercial exhibition did not take place until 1979, seventeen years after his death. Allen died in Hayward, California, at the age of 75. He was survived by his son, Frederick.

Filmography

*'' Forbidden Daughters'' (1927)

Bibliography

* *

References

External links

*
Albert Arthur Allen
at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

Albert Arthur Allen
at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Albert Arthur Nude photographers 20th-century American photographers 1886 births 1962 deaths