Mary Cecil Allen

Mary Cecil Allen (2 September 18937 April 1962 She and her sisters, Edith Margaret and Beatrice (Biddy), spent their childhood living in a staff house at the University of Melbourne where their father was an anatomy professor and the Dean of Medicine. Her father was knighted in 1914.

Early work: 1920s

Allen was a member of Australian Art Association, the Victorian Artists' Society and the Twenty Melbourne Painters during the 1920s and her exhibitions of landscapes and portrait paintings were well received by the Melbourne art world. She was also a member of society, being friends with Ivy Brookes (daughter of Alfred Deakin) and having Dame Nellie Melba and University Vice-Chancellor Sir John Grice open some of her exhibitions. Two of Allen's portraits were finalists in the Archibald Prize in 1921 and a further two were finalists in 1925. During early September 1921 Allen exhibited a set of fifty-four oil paintings at the Fine Art Society's Gallery in Melbourne. In 1925 Allen became the first woman art critic for The Sun. She studied under Max Meldrum, a tonal impressionist whose students, Arnold Shore and Jock Frater, had been experimenting with modernism. At this point, Allen was not yet a fan of modernism — she criticised Shore's work in The Sun and said that post-impressionists "create nothing but monsters–they invent the abnormal" during one of her lectures. In 1926 she was employed by the National Gallery of Victoria as an art guide and lecturer — the first woman to hold this position

In 1926, Florence Gillies, an American tourist, visited Melbourne and invited Allen to be her guide through European galleries, mostly in Paris. Following this, in 1927, Allen lectured at New York City venues including the Metropolitan Museum, Columbia University and other institutions. She ran a series of lectures at the Readers Roundtable of the People's Institute, held at the New York Public Library, where newly created adult classes were taking place and were sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation. From that time, Allen generally lived and worked in New York. at the Nicholas Roerich Museum, opening in February 1931. Besides her own work, featured artists included Norman Lindsay, Thea Proctor, George Bell and Dora Toovey: La Revue Moderne, a French modern art journal, profiled her in 1931. The New York Times called her work in the Australian Art exhibition "arrestingly modern" — this was in contrast to the conservative works of other Australian artists.

Chanin notes that during 1935 Allen's work was shown at the Brooklyn Museum International Exhibition, the New York Independents Exhibition, the Salon of American Art and the 38th Annual New Jersey State Exhibition, beside that of Milton Avery, Stanley William Hayter and William Zorach. Allen returned to Melbourne that year for eleven months. She spoke with many women's groups whilst in Australia, such as National Council of Women of Victoria and Australian Federation of University Women. Receptions were hosted for her by the Victoria League Club, the Arts and Crafts Society of Victoria, the International Club and the Melbourne Society of Women Painters. Basil Burdett wrote that during this time in Melbourne, Allen "exercised a profound influence in favour of the new forms, both by teaching and lecturing".

Allen's paintings — including abstracted depictions of New York skyscrapers and subways "with only loyal friends buying pictures, which they later confessed they dare not hang at home".

Provincetown Art Colony: 1950s

From 1949 Allen lived and worked in Provincetown at its art colony. Her cubist style painting, "Sea, studio: Winter" was painted in that year at the colony. It was shown at Georges Gallery in Melbourne in following year. In June 1950 Allen travelled to Alice Springs to "capture something of the strange character and beauty of central Australia for an exhibition when she returns next month to New York." From this trip she wrote "Notes on Central Australia" for Meanjin, the Australian literary magazine, in Spring 1950.

Her final visit to Australia was from November 1959 to April 1960, to lecture and exhibit.

Eight of Allen's paintings are held by the National Gallery of Victoria. Her papers are held at the Archives of American Art. Sacrifice, a wax crayon work, was sold at Christie's (London), in November 1991, for USD1,096. Her landscape, Sorento Hotel, was sold at auction in May 2001, in Melbourne, for US$7,274. In July 1966 L. M. Haynes, professor of industrial arts at the University of Sydney delivered "Creativity in Art and Science" for that year's lecture.

Selected paintings In Fancy Dress (, 1918) In Fancy Dress (, 1918) Reclining blue figure (1930s) Back gardens (1935) Nova Scotian fisherman (1935) Sea, studio: Winter (1949) Manhattan (1950s) Abstract Figure Composition (1959) Eildon Weir, dusk (1960) Near Yan Yean Victoria (1960) Sacrifice (undated) Sorento Hotel (undated) Wind walking (undated)