Oscar Allain

Óscar Guillermo Allain Cottera (19 September 1922 – 17 December 2025) was a Peruvian painter of French descent.

Life and career Allain was born in Lima, Peru, on 19 September 1922. He was the son of the marriage of the military man Guillermo Allain Soto and the novice Juanita Cottera Palomino. His father proposed that he study the militarization of the Chorrillos Military School. His mother died at the age of 22.

Allain studied at the National Superior Autonomous School of Fine Arts (ENSABAP) in Lima. He was a disciple of Alejandro González Trujillo ("Apu-Rimak") at the centennial National School of Fine Arts as a member of the so-called "golden generation". He worked as a professor at the Víctor Morey Peña Higher School of Fine Arts in Iquitos and at the Hermilio Valdizan National University in Huánuco.

Allain was a paradigmatic, testimonial and expressive painter of the coast, mountains and jungle of Peru. His plastic art captured the colors, faces and characters such as the painting of the artists Pancho Fierro, Francisco Laso, José Sabogal and Teodoro Núñez Ureta that expresses the man of Peru with his peculiarities.

Allain relocated to Paris, France, for several decades. He lived in the Place de la Concorde and attended the flea market where he bought a military painting about his ancestors who were Sephardic Jews who had moved from Spain to Bordeaux, France, because of a terrorist threat. In France, Allain painted on the banks of the Seine river like the Impressionist painters, with the good fortune that the public bought his paintings as they were nearing completion. Among the various pictorial motifs we find women dressed in white represented in a watercolor entitled "Las chismosas". Allain pointed out that he liked to paint customs.

The independent painters are integrated by Ricardo Grau, Óscar Allain, Francisco González Gamarra, Sérvulo Gutiérrez, Juan Barreto, Carlos More, Domingo Pantigoso, Víctor Humareda, Carlos Quizpez Asín, Federico Reinoso, Bernardo Rivero, Ricardo Sánchez, Adolfo Winternitz and Sabino Springett, among others.

Allain formed the group 8 pintores which was made up of the painters Ángel Chávez López, Aquiles Ralli, Enrique Galdos Rivas, Fernando Sovero, Gamaniel Palomino, Julio Camino Sánchez and Manuel Zapata Orihuela.

He was a member of the Association of Plastic Artists of Peru (ASPAP), and the Society of Authors and Composers of Peru (SAYCOPE).

Allain died on 17 December 2025 at the age of 103.

Pictorial work Allain's pictorial work seeks to reinterpret the art and culture of Peru. The independent master is a creator, an integrator who assumes the diverse identities of Peru, a country of diverse nationalities since the ancestors populated this wonderful nation. Grace Pension of the Peruvian State. Civic Medal of the Municipality of La Victoria. Civic Medal of the Municipality of Jesús María. Civic Medal of the Municipality of San Isidro. Civic Medal of the Municipality of Lima. Civic Medal of the Peruvian Petroleum Engineering Service of the East (SEPIPSA). Civic Medal of the National Association of Breeders and Owners of Peruvian Paso Horses (ANCPCPP). Medal of Culture of the National Institute of Culture of Lambayeque. Medal of the National Society of Fine Arts of Peru. Artistic Palmas in the Degree of Grand Master of the Ministry of Education. Retrospective of Óscar Allain from the Pancho Fierro Municipal Art Gallery. Participation in the edition of the pictorial exhibition "Art Night". Participation in the Fourth Havana Biennial, Cuba. Exhibition of the Museum of the Americas of Puerto Rico. Exhibition "The Color of my Land" of the 465th anniversary of the National University of San Marcos. Pictorial exhibition at the Convention of Peruvian Institutions of the United States and Canada in New York City. Collective exhibition "Between the figurative and the abstract" of the Ministry of Culture. Collective exhibition of the artists of the Association of Plastic Artists of Peru (ASPAP) of the Ricardo Palma Cultural Center. Collective exhibition "Marinera for the world" of the gallery "Raúl Joo Meléndez" of the College of Architects of La Libertad. Collective tribute exhibition of the Association of Plastic Artists of Peru and Petroleum of Peru. Participation in the Congress of the Marinera of the House of Latin America. Participation in the educational strategy "I learn at home" of the Ministry of Education. Participation in the XVI General Assembly and Congress of the International Association of Plastic Arts of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (AIAP-UNESCO). Representation of Peru in the Family Integration event of the Organization of American States (OAS). Issuance of stamps of the Postal Services of Peru (Serpost) with motifs of Allain's pictorial work. In the celebration of his first centenary of his birth, he was considered the dean of painters and patriarch of the Creoles of Peru. Waltz song in his tribute entitled "Painter of sensations" composed and recorded by the criollos Willy Terry and Carlos Castillo.