FrankHumphreyAllen.com Biography of gallery of artist Frank Humphrey Allen
Title
Frank Humphrey Allen - Norfolk Artist, expressionist modern art including landscapes, portraits, abstracts, still life and flora and fauna.
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Excerpted from the website description:
- Frank Humphrey Allen - Norfolk Artist, expressionist modern art including landscapes, portraits, abstracts, still life and flora and fauna.
Additional Information
Frank Humphrey Allen is one of British art's lost gems. He should share a place with Lowry, Lawrence Isherwood and Fred Yates at the heart of 20th. Century British art, but whilst Isherwood and Yates are fast establishing their places alongside Lowry, Allen languishes in self inflicted obscurity.
In choosing to move to Norfolk, for reasons which have not been established (perhaps ill health, perhaps to be close to his neice, perhaps to escape the politics of the London art scene) he shut himself away from the art world.
This removed any chance he had of success in his own lifetime, but perhaps makes him an artist most deserving of discovery.
Frank did not paint for success or fame. He did not churn out the formulaic creations of the best known artists. You cannot look at an Allen and see it is an Allen simply through style.
Knowing an Allen is a much more complex and subtle art. He worked in a myriad of styles, rich and varied. From the evidence of dates, he did not develop a style and then use it for a time before moving on. There are no blue periods to tie his work to or date it by. He steps from style to style with ease never satisfied with one.
To Allen, the subject is more important than the style. He instinctively uses the correct language for the occassion. His portraits are not portraits of an individual, but of a character type. In painting people he is like a sophisticated cartoonist. He takes the main characteristics of a person and distorts it to create an image we recognize, not of an individual but of a character trait. In doing this he never becomes the ruthless cartoonist, attacking on a personal level, he is revealing to us aspects of our own humanity with the kindness of a benevolent relative.
His work embraces surrealism and abstraction and turns them into his own vision. His paintings touch the soul in a way few artists can. The images stay with you as pleasant memories. If you live with an Allen for any length of time, it becomes a member of the family to be greeted whenever met and treated with a respect not shown to most works of modern art.
Whether Frank Humphrey Allen will ever achieve the success he deserves I cannot say. However, if you like modern art and are looking for a rare and unspoiled talent Frank Humphrey Allen may just surprise you and give you a glimpse of the power of art when it is not directed by greed and the desire for instant success.
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