Epworth Allen, Harry – Summer
£148.00 – £286.00
Our Ravilious prints are authorized for publication by the Estate, and each print has a seal of authenticity embossed onto the white paper margin.
Description
Tempera, 1940. It is the end of a summer’s day and the hay is being collected. Summer is at its height, the verges and hedgerows are verdant and the trees are in full leaf. This is typical Harry Epworth Allen – a depiction of work in the landscape – but typical also for the colours: deep greens, purples, blacks and browns, all particularly saturated in this end of day light.
About This Artist
Harry Epworth Allen
Harry Epworth Allen was a painter, notably in tempera, known especially for his landscape works and for the painting of his locale, Derbyshire.
Epworth Allen was born in Sheffield, in 1894, to Elizabeth Epworth Allen (née Blacktin) and Henry Allen, a steel mark maker. He attended King Edward VII School for boys before becoming a clerk at Arthur Balfour and Co, Steelworks. Here he excelled, eventually becoming Balfour’s private secretary, but he left his employment during World War One, and enlisted with the Royal Garrison Artillery of the Regular Army. He became an assistant to an Observation Officer (who directs artillery fire to a target when the target is out of sight of those firing) before both were posted to France and the front line. Here, five months after arriving, they were caught by heavy shelling and the Officer was buried, unable to extricate himself from a dug-out. Allen helped release the Officer but experienced further massive incoming fire which resulted in severe shrapnel bruising, and after hospitalization, the loss of one leg through amputation.
Allen had shown promise as an artist from the beginning. Whilst working at Arthur Balfour’s he attended Sheffield Technical School of Art, and during the War he used his skills to sketch enemy positions and equipment in the field. After his injury he was discharged, but he continued to sketch and paint. He married Lucy Hodder in 1925, and in 1931 he took up painting full time. He joined several artist’s societies: the Sheffield Society of Artists; Hallamshire Art Society and the Pastel Society, but he also exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, and continued to do so until his death in 1958.
Allen’s work was initially realistic, but he developed a distinctive style of simplified landscape and figure studies. His main concern throughout was the depiction of landscape, of toil and of the kinds of recreation associated with the working landscape. He paints labourers threshing; bringing home the cows; chopping the wood; sheep-dog trials and village allotments. Sometimes the images are surreal – he is recognized especially in his later works as belonging to the surrealist school – but mostly they are depictions of a realistic landscape seen through a unique but also appreciative gaze.
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FRAMING
We bespoke frame all prints; this ensures that your print will be presented at its best. Each frame is hand-assembled with joints precisely aligned. The mount is an archival pH neutral museum grade white core mount which does not fade with time. We use 2mm UV filtering glazing and there is a choice of wood and aluminium frames.
