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John Allinson
Gallery On Greene is pleased to represent
John Allinson.
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John Allinson was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1942, son of 2nd
world war Royal Air Force hero Squadron Leader Bill Allinson, and
pianist Eira Allinson. After a Grammar school education he attended
the Central School of Art in London, subsequently working as an
illustrator and graphic designer in North Africa following the
Algerian war, and raising funds for “War on Want” through his
artwork.
During the ensuing years he traveled prolifically throughout Europe,
working at just about any job he could find, including fairground
mechanic and illustrator, and as a salesman at trade shows
throughout West Germany. He managed to find the occasional art
commission, and created graphics around a pot bellied stove in
Austria for local design agents and for little money.
In 1963 he joined the Royal Corps of Signals as a draughtsman, but
following an accident in Cyprus was discharged from the Army, and
began traveling again in Europe.
He worked as a car salesman for a number of years, with limited art
commissions, and selling portraits and newspaper illustrations at
low prices to try and achieve recognition.
He also became interested in ancient buildings, and became a self
taught technical writer, achieving weekly commissions from British
newspapers, and in 1979 was invited to assist in the design and
construction of a permanent care of buildings exhibition at Hampton
Court Palace, where he designed and built mock houses and interiors,
and which drew media attention to his work.
It was at this time that he began to receive a smattering of mural
painting enquiries, and subsequently was invited to muralise a
restaurant in Gibraltar.
This was followed by further commissions, including a new waterfront
development in Cardiff, Wales, and portraiture for stately homes
open to the public. The first major breakthrough came with
commissioned drawings from impresario Robert Stigwood, followed by
an invitation to design and build a bronze memorial dedicated to
South Wales Miners, where he cast three plaques weighing 300 pounds
each, and mounted them on the largest single piece of limestone
quarried in Wales.
He was then invited to represent Wales in painting at the Gymanfu
Garni Eisteddfod in Pennsylvania, and also lectured there on art,
and held an exhibition of his work at the Susquehanna gallery in
Harrisburg. He held subsequent exhibitions in Baltimore, and was
made a citizen of Maryland, and of the cities of Baltimore and
Harrisburg.
By this time he was able financially to concentrate all of his
efforts on his art, and spent a number of years painting murals in
the Channel Islands for corporate and private clients.
He declined offers to hold exhibitions, being not so much interested
in the completed painting as the process of painting it and his
quest to put light onto canvas.
Media attention was prolific, and he appeared on several television
and radio programmes. He also received requests for illustrated
furniture, particularly Victorian Cabin Trunks, but the majority of
his efforts were concentrated on mural painting, preferring the use
of large scale colour and tone.
In 2001 he was invited by filmmaker Richard Attenborough to break
the record for the world’s largest canvas painting, as a celebration
of the development of a major new film studio and theme park. 200x8
feet plus later, it was discovered that a Chinese artist had
completed 6600 feet of canvas, albeit with meagre content, and so
the attempt was dropped.
As a result, media attention increased on what became ‘Not the
longest Painting.’ Art Historian rex Harley wrote,” In John
Allinson’s painting ‘House of Dreams’ a host of artists and
entertainers emerge from a swirl of colours, in the same way that
their human counterparts stepped out from the stream of history to
entertain and enrich our lives. They are represented mainly as heads
and torsos, in a series of tableaux, solid and strong, conjured up
in bold bravado strokes of paint. Though there is an echo here of
the film poster, the artist is not interested in slavishly capturing
physical likeness. Thus, what could have been in the hands of a less
accomplished painter a series of disjointed and lifeless portraits
becomes here, in this vast panorama, a dynamic progression, action,
set against the backdrop of time – the world in widescreen.”
In 2003 he was invited by The Travel Channel to research a series of
cultural travel programmes based in Florida, and spent several
visits filming from Miami to Key West, and painting large canvases
at the Biltmore in Coral Gables, in Hemingway’s garden and Hard Rock
Café in Key West. He made a presentation to the Miami entertainments
and Arts Council, and was invited by Keys Commissioner George
Neugent to erect the mammoth canvas on the Seven Mile Bridge, but
this proved logistically almost impossible, and he is now talking
with Commissioner Neugent about other potential sites.
He formed a film production company in 2004, which has attracted
support from a nucleus of specialist editing and production
professionals, and who now form the core of ‘Crucial Cargo Film
Productions,’ and a documentary is in progress covering the
painting’s journey from conception through to its anticipated
erection in Florida.
John Allinson currently exhibits his work at The Gallery on Greene
in Key West, where his first exhibition of paintings for many years
will take place in January 2005.
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