Harry Epworth Allen (27 November 1894 – 25 March 1958)Batsford, J. (2005) – facsimile of birth certificate, p. 186 was an English painter. He was one of the twentieth century's most distinctive interpreters of landscape. Allen was recognised as one of the Yorkshire Artists group but also made numerous landscape works of the

west of Ireland Connacht or Connaught ( ; or ), is the smallest of the four provinces of Ireland, situated in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms (Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, ...

particularly in the area around

Achill Achill Island (; ) is an island off the west coast of Republic of Ireland, Ireland in the barony (Ireland), historical barony of Burrishoole, County Mayo. It is the largest of the Irish isles and has an area of approximately . Achill had a popu ...

Early life

H. E. Allen was born at 36, William Street, in the Broomhall district of

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

, England. The city would remain his home for the rest of his life. His father was Henry Allen, a steel mark maker, and his mother, Elizabeth Epworth Allen (née Blacktin). Epworth was the maiden name of Elizabeth's mother, who was also called Elizabeth. Allen showed remarkable artistic talent from an early age and, in 1902, won third prize for pen and ink drawing in an art studentship competition run by the Sheffield Weekly Independent. Between 1907 and 1911, he attended the King Edward VII School in Sheffield, where he obtained a Lower School Certificate Prize for his class distinctions in Arithmetic, Scripture and English. In 1911, he began work as a clerk in the

steel works A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also be a plant where steel semi-fini ...

owned by

Arthur Balfour Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (; 25 July 184819 March 1930) was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As Foreign Secretary ...

and in 1912 he enrolled at the Sheffield Technical School of Art.

War service

In 1915, Allen enlisted with the

Royal Garrison Artillery The Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) was formed in 1899 as a distinct arm of the British Army's Royal Artillery, Royal Regiment of Artillery serving alongside the other two arms of the Regiment, the Royal Field Artillery (RFA) and the Royal Horse ...

of the Regular Army and in June 1916 was posted to the British Expeditionary Force to France. He worked as an assistant to the observation officer, sketching enemy equipment and locations in the field. In August 1916, he was moved to the front line. In 1917, he was awarded the

Military Medal The Military Medal (MM) was a military decoration awarded to personnel of the British Army and other arms of the British Armed Forces, armed forces, and to personnel of other Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, below commissioned o ...

for conspicuous gallantry. Badly wounded, one of his legs was amputated above the knee, and the other suffered serious injury. His school magazine for 1917 recorded his experience:

Artistic career

Allen was discharged from the Army in 1918. He was involved in a number of art societies in the 1920s and was a pupil of Frank Saltfleet. He was a member of a number of art societies including Sheffield Society of Artists, Hallamshire Sketch Club (from 1932 known as the Hallamshire Art Society), Heeley Art Club, and later the Pastel Society 1952. He exhibited at The Royal Academy over 23 years from 1933 and he had 39 works accepted by them. He was prolific as an artist, working from the 1920s up until his death in 1958. On 16 May 1925, he married Lucy Hodder at Holy Trinity Church, Millbrook, Southampton. They took their honeymoon at Corfe in Dorset. In 1931, Allen was made redundant and became a professional painter. After the death of Allen's father in 1932, the couple went to live with his mother, Elizabeth Epworth Blacktin. Allen died on 25 March 1958, at home, at 67 Banner Cross Road, from a

coronary thrombosis Coronary thrombosis is defined as the formation of a blood clot inside a blood vessel of the heart. This blood clot may then restrict blood flow within the heart, leading to heart tissue damage, or a myocardial infarction, also known as a heart ...

Paintings

Allen was recognised as one of the Yorkshire Artists group, but also made numerous landscape works of the

West of Ireland Connacht or Connaught ( ; or ), is the smallest of the four provinces of Ireland, situated in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms (Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, ...

, particularly in the area around

. His style is often regarded as surreal. Allen's paintings are held in the art collections of a number of British institutions including Sheffield Museums, Derby Art Gallery,

The Hepworth Wakefield The Hepworth Wakefield is an art museum in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, which opened on 21 May 2011. The gallery is situated on the south side of the River Calder and takes its name from artist and sculptor Barbara Hepworth who was born ...

and the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. In April 2013, two of Allens' wartime paintings, of

Achill Island Achill Island (; ) is an island off the west coast of Ireland in the historical barony of Burrishoole, County Mayo. It is the largest of the Irish isles and has an area of approximately . Achill had a population of 2,345 in the 2022 census. ...

in County Mayo, were shown on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

's ''

Antiques Roadshow ''Antiques Roadshow'' is a British television programme broadcast by the BBC in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom (and occasionally in other countries) to appraise antiques brought in by local people ( ...

''. Executed in

egg tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. ''Tempera'' also refers to the paintings done in ...

the paintings were valued at £6,000 – £7,000 each.

Selected works

* ''Burning Limestone'', tempera on paper, 46.5 x 58.3 cm, Newport Museum and Art Gallery * ''Keel Lake, Achill Island'', oil on board, 35.5 x 51 cm,

Mount Stewart Mount Stewart is a 19th-century house and garden in County Down, Northern Ireland, owned by the National Trust. Situated on the east shore of Strangford Lough, a few miles outside the town of Newtownards and near Greyabbey, it was the Iris ...

, (

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

) * ''A Derbyshire Farmstead'', tempera on paper, 36.5 x 50 cm,

Potteries Museum & Art Gallery The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery is in Bethesda Street, Hanley, one of the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. Admission is free. One of the four local authority museums in the city, the other three being Gladstone Pottery Museum, ...

* ''Derbyshire Walls'', tempera on canvas, 47.5 x 58 cm,

Museums Sheffield Sheffield Museums Trust, is a charity created in 2021 to run Sheffield City Council’s museums and galleries. It was formed from the merger of Sheffield Galleries & Museums Trust (Museums Sheffield), and Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust. I ...

* ''Eyam, Derbyshire'', c.1936, pencil and tempera on paper, 35.2 x 51.2 cm,

Laing Art Gallery The Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, is located on New Bridge Street West. The gallery was designed in the Baroque style with Art Nouveau elements by architects Cackett & Burns Dick and is now a Grade II listed building. It ...

* ''Industrial Landscape, Hope Valley, Derbyshire'', c.1959, tempera on paper, 63.1 x 76.7 cm, Derbyshire & Derby School Library Service * ''Portrait of a Lady'', 1936, tempera on panel, 51 x 40.8 cm,

* ''Rocky Landscape'', (nd) oil on plywood, 46.5 x 51 cm,

Government Art Collection The Government Art Collection (GAC) is the collection of artworks owned by the UK government and administered by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The GAC's artworks are used to decorate major government buildings in the UK and ...

* ''Sheepdog Trials'', 1930s, tempera on canvas, 47 x 61 cm,

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery __NOTOC__ Buxton Museum and Art Gallery focuses its collection on history, geology and archaeology primarily from the Peak District and Derbyshire. The museum is located at Terrace Road, Buxton, England. The museum opens Tuesday to Saturday a ...

* ''Summer'', 1940, tempera on canvas, 50.4 x 60.8 cm, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery * ''The Caravan'', tempera on board, 36.5 x 50 cm,

Homerton College, Cambridge Homerton College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Its first premises were acquired in Homerton, London in 1768, by an informal gathering of Protestant dissenters with origins in the seventeenth century. In 1894, the col ...

* ''The Derelict Farm'', 1949, tempera on board, 48.3 x 59.7 cm,

Harris Museum The Harris Museum is a Grade I-listed building in Preston, Lancashire, England. Founded by Edmund Harris in 1877, it is a local history and fine art museum. History In the 19th century, it became legal to raise money for libraries by local ...

* ''The Road to the Hills'', tempera on board, 45.7 x 61 cm,

Derby Museum and Art Gallery Derby Museum and Art Gallery is a museum and art gallery in Derby, England. It was established in 1879, along with Derby Central Library, in a new building designed by Richard Knill Freeman and given to Derby by Michael Thomas Bass. The col ...

References

Sources

* Basford, J., ''Harry Epworth Allen (1894–1958): Catalogue of His Works'' (2007), The Horizon Press and Derwent-Wye, ,

External links

*
The Derbyshire of Harry Epworth Allen (1894–1958)
at artinconnu.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Harry Epworth 1894 births 1958 deaths 20th-century English painters English male painters Artists from Sheffield People educated at King Edward VII School, Sheffield 20th-century English male artists