John Allinson was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1942, son of 2nd world war Royal Airforce 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.