Adrian Allinson

Adrian Paul Allinson (9 January 1890 – 20 February 1959) was a British painter, potter and engraver known for his landscapes of Southern Europe and North Africa, and for a series of notable posters he made for London Transport.

Life and career Allinson was born in London, the eldest son of a doctor, Thomas Allinson, whose advocacy of vegetarianism and contraception had led to his being struck off the medical register. His mother Anna Allinson (née Pulvermacher), the granddaughter of a Polish rabbi, was a portrait painter who had studied in Berlin. His brother was physician Bertrand P. Allinson.

After leaving Wycliffe College, Allinson began studying medicine, but gave this up and turned instead to art, gaining a scholarship in his second year at the Slade School of Fine Art. and with other members later joined with the Vorticists to form The London Group. He also designed sets for the Beecham Opera Company. In 1916 he was registered as a conscientious objector.

Following the war he again travelled to Europe. He became a member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1933 and of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 1936. and for the Empire Marketing Board. He was selected as a government war artist by the War Artists Advisory Committee during World War II. After the war, he taught at the Westminster Technical Institute. Some months before his death, he participated in the creation of a wax sculpture of Kwame Nkrumah for Madame Tussauds.

Allinson died on 20 February 1959.