author unknown, original available in this exhibit and the Stanford Digital Repository

James E. Allen was born on February 23, 1894, Louisiana, Missouri, to William H. and Annie May (Scoggins) Allen of that same township. His Grand- father was a poineer settler in Salt River County. But James did not stay in that locale nor did his parents, who brought him as an infant to Montana where he was reared[1]. His first success was encouraged on the part of his teachers in the Willow Creek School, Anaconda, Montana. He was only fourteen at that time, in 1908, when he won first prize for a painting which he entered at the Deer Lodge County Fair in Mill Creek, Montana.[2] With such beginning stimulation, the emerging artist, in 1911, at the age of 17, decided upon a career which brought him east to Chicago to begin his art studies.[3] This young boy, who according to Grace Parmele, later his wife, was always an adventurous sort, liking the feel of the rising and falling of a horse beneath him, or the stalking of a hunt, or just walking in the mountains (he lived on the Continental divide) could not be held back from his interests and, especially, his art.[4] Maybe it was the determined pioneer heredity in his bones that did not permit his life to stagnate into a one-town blase existence.

Allen was a student at the Art Academy, Chicago, and then went on to study at the Art Students League, The Grand Central School, and the Hans Hoffman School in New York City.[5] He was always to be a searching and industrious student. But with the coming of World War I, Allen felt the calling of his country as did many Americans. He quit his job as illustrator and staff artist for Doubleday-Page Publishing Company and enlisted in a sterner path of existence; that of a pilot in the army where danger was at its highest [6], the old fighter planes not the most perfected. The base newspaper, "The Camp Dick Avion" (Texas, 1918), rated him as an excellent flier and a personality very highly respected by his fellow officers. But even when he was in the service of his country, Allen continued in the field of art, drawing satirical cartoons for the Camp Dick Avion.

When hostilities ended, art once again cammanded the full attention of Allen's creative energies. He and his wife, Grace (Parmele) Allen, whom he had married on January 8, 1919 [5], while he was still in uniform, remained in the States until 1925. At that time, having accrued enough backing through illustration jobs, he and his wife left for Paris where he was to spend the following year studying. There he studied paintings and etchings, investigating especially, Malevich, Cezanne (his graphic hero), Roualt, and the cubistic groups.[7] He bought tools and a press from Calmel and joined up with Howard Cook, another man to become famous as a needle and acid man.[8] He produced his first etching, "Dragon Court" in Paris in 1925,[9] His interest in the cubists did not diminish into the years. His wife and his daughter (both artists to a lesser degree) take pride. in displaying and discussing the many books in his studio on Renoir, Cezanne, Mattise, and Van Gogh. Allen also made a trip to England to renew interest in Blake. These, the Chinese Painters, Giotto and El Greco, Persian painters, and the Byzantine painters are his heroes in painting. [7]

Allen looked for perfection in all his work. He had discovered the secret of etching, the "economy of line and contrast between this and the whiteness of paper.”[9] As a proponent of four mediums, painting, woodcut, lithography, and etching, Allen exercised his "practical" or "exact eye",[5] a necessity, especially in the last. The etching process consists of scratching different series of lines through a protective coating over a metal plate. Where the coating has been scratched, acid is poured and timed for certain densities and thicknesses of lines (the acid cuts into the plate). The first series of lines is then recoated and the same process is again carried on for all other lines, and then again until the artist feels satisfied that all is completed. The difficulty of the etching process is why the art is almost completely extinct today, for the artist never knows exactly what his work will look like until he makes the actual print. With lithography, Alien had an easier job of drawing on a stone with a grease pencil and he could see exactly what he was doing (the printing precess of lithography being similer. to that of offsett in production). The lithography process was what Allen was best known tor because of the multiplicity of prints that he produced in that medium (being more suitable and less tine consuming for comercial use). But Allen was highly meticulous in both mediums, the direct print process of etchings making itself self-evident as a skill of the most delicate Hand.

Much training, sfudying,.and research went inte making James E. Allen a master

artist. Allen never stoppedbseing a atudent. He had to learn every technique and every particular detail of his vocation. He studied sculpture under Naum M. Los for three dimensional form, and with Harvey Dunn for illustration. He then studied more etching under Joseph Pennell, and litho under William Auerbach Levy. He studied painting under Sigurd Skou, Robert Brackman, Robert Phillip, and Arshile Gorky.[3] His quest for perfect expression of form and composition was always nearing more fulfilment.

Allen wes so preoccupied with the search for perfection in his work, that even for his commercial prints, he drew directly from the model rather than from photographs. His model drawings, made in charcoal, were most often life size drawings which he would show to his clients before reducing the proportions to a fourteen by sixteen inch stone for lithographing. Ernest W. Watson called him a "Virile American Artist,” one who “has consistently refused to compromise with commercial conditions that impose restrictions on his creative powers."[3][10] Every piece of work he did, whether for advertising or for illustration, required the same creative spirit.

While creating the familiar dinosaur trademarks for the Sinclair Refining Company, Allen worked under the guidance of Dr. Barnum Brown, Curator of Foussil Reptiles in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. For these advertisements, making use of prehistoric creatures to symbolize the age of crude oils, Allen drew more than fifty kinds of dinosaurs and other reptiles. He spent many month of research on these creatures, sometimes finding it necessary to reconstruct bones never before assembled. He spent weeks on one skeleton, drawing in each vertebra and. placing each bone; then finally he would make a plastilene model before he felt ready to draw.[3] These plastilene models, now bronzed, may still be seen in his studio-home at 41a Mayhew Avenue, Larchmont, Nev York.

Messrs, Alley and Richards Company gave Allen the opportunity of designing a series of large scale lithographic pictures for the United States Pipe and Foundry Company.[5] In these lithographs, he expressed, as in most his works, the dynamic strength “of men over material."[9] Allen was reflecting his country in his work; the constructive, living America, where men labored with dignity and determination. Allen presented the power and nobleness of man, the conmon man, walking in the sky on girders of steel, or shoveling hot ingots, or laying down pipelines, each just doing his daily work. Thomas Mann, in an address at Yale, said that the first concern of art was the "great and the good",[11] using Allen's "Spider Boy” (fearlessly walking along a girder many stories high) as an illustration. Because Allen depicted "great and Good" ofjectives, he cannot only be classified as "an industrial graphic artist.”[5]

Rarely do illustrations meet with success in both advertising and art circles. But Allen's United States Pipe and Foundry Prints commanded both markets. Though many gallery illustrations have been used in advertising, his were the first created expressly for advertising that were exhibited and sold from galleries.[12] While producing calendars with Allen's lithographs, the United States Pipe and Foundry Company had all the illustrations matted so that the customers could hang up each lithograph as a picture (the requested demand for individual Allen lithographs being so great).[13]

Allien had a wide reputation as an etcher and lithographer. His career as a gallery artist bogan in 1932, when he won the Shope Prize for the best composed print ("The Builders") at the twenty-fifth annual exhibition of the Society of American Etchers, in the National Arts Club, Grammercy Park. In the same year, he won the Shaw Prize at the Salmagundi Club, New York, where he also won the Igidor Prize (1939) and the Fred D, Keithly Prize (1946).[5]

His prints began to be collected by private collectors as well as by many institutions and museums. In 1935, he won the Charles M. Lea Prize, the Philadelphia Print Club purchase [prize] for the Philadelphia Museum. He also received honourable mention, a purchase prize by the Seattle Museum of Art at the North West Coast Printmakers Association in 1942. He was also awarded a purchase prize by the Oklahoma W. P. A. Art Center in 1942. Museums and institutions also owning his prints are: the Pennsylvania Museum, Lawrence College, Cleveland Museum, Cincinatti Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Library of Congress, New York Public Liprary (print collection) , the Montclair Art Museum, Howard University, and the Brooklyn Musem.[5]

Allen gave his first one-man show, a one month exhibition (February 27 to March 27, 1938), at the Division of Graphic Arts, United States National Musem (Smithsonian Building).[14] There, he was representing America, one of the most honourable awards that few living American artists can ever attain. We was also chosen to exhibit for his country in both the Chicago and the New York World's Fairs. Allen's other one man shows were exhibited at the Architectural League, New York (1941), the Art Craft Club (1940), Detroit Michigan, the Larchmont and the New Rochelle Publie Libraries, New York (1938), and at the Charleston Art Gallery.[7]

Among the numerous private collectors of Alien's prints is Mr. "Ernest" Melvilie Fox, proprietor of Rolfe's Chop House, 90 Fulton Street, New York City. Mr. Fox, possessor of one of the largest collection of privately owned etchings in New York Coty is distinguished among other collectors of Allen's works in that he was actually the subject of one of the etchings, “The Salad Maker” (one of the many prints displayed at the Smithsonian Institution). Allen made an etching of Mr. Fox who was preparing salads at the table of his customers (the salad being the noted dish at Rolfe's Chop House). Mr. Fox still uses this etching as a trademark for his restaurant, having reproductions of it printed on all his place mats, sugar cube wrappers, and stationary. Many of Allen's works are decorating the walls of both the lower and upper level of the Fulton Street Restaurant. This display is of special significance as it gives the viewer a general tone for all the artist's works, being inclusive of etchings, lithographs, and paintings while showing the diversification of hi subject matter. A lover of nature and animals, Allen made many prints of wild life in its natural setting, such as pheasants in bushes and several mountain animals in quest for food.[15] The simplicity, natural tone, and detailed workmanhip of these prints show the expansive sensitivity of the artist, perhaps reflecting his earlier boyhood days in Montana. Allen's more religious tones, such as "Prayer for Rain" (winner of the Isidor Prize at the Salamagundi Club, 1938) [15][17] and the "Plower" (man working in quest of his daily bread) can also be seen by the viewing diner.

Allen's paintings are also of great interest, having been exhibited at many galleries, and showing what the artist saw and portrayed in color rather than black and white. According to Carlyle Burrows, Allen followed "a variation of a set of themes of bathers or dancers" in hig paintings exhibited at the Frank Rhen Gallery. Such a painting as "Color Fantasy” makes a “mildly arresting rhythmic design of pink nudes on horses and blue lake and brown mountains in of his most animate pictures." His paintings embody "careful study of natural form."[18] Allen's use of dainty and graceful figures (usually nude) in his paintings is quite in contrast to his more powerful industrial subjects in his black and white prints. Edward Devree said that Allen's paintings were "unpretentious, honest, colorful, frankly decorative arrangements...with a kind of visual musical quality, pleasantly dreamlike."[19] It ts interesting to note, however, that all the paintinge on the walls of of Allen's sfudio-home have no human subject matter but rather just variations on different tonal qualities of Mountains, all brightly colored.

Allen's studio-home is also of special interest as it wes not only his workshop but also an expression of his personality. When Allen originally designed the studio he told hie wife, Grace Allen, that it was to have a two-fold purpose because it might someday also be a studio-home. After his daughter, Joan, married, Allen and his wife moved into the studio-home. This four room New England style cottage (with its wood siding and shutters) has a majestic studio-parlor containing couches, armchairs, a dining room table, and his art supplies (including an easel, paints, and a printing press). All is quaintly blended in the meticulously kept room. The spaciousness of this two-floor high studio parlor seems to be almost a necessity to enclose the majestic mountain paintings on the walls.[20]

Allen was also able to view his success from his own armchair at home as his art was not only to be confined to the commercial publications and to art circles. Reproducticns of his prints were to illustrate many political and economix issues in magazines and newspapers circulated throughout the country. Allen's etchings and lithographs were especially adaptable to an era with many labor problems such as that of The New Deal platform.[21] Allen's “Teeming Ingots" was used to illustrate an article on labor entitled, "No More Strikes" by Ida M. Tarbell.[22] His "The Laborer” and "The Stokers” were to illustrate an economic article headlined, “What Next in Steel" wy Donald Wilhelm.[23] in the fields of politics and labor, Mathew Woll was to have his editorial, "Labor Weighs the New Deal" accompanied by Allen's “The Builders”.[24]

Allen's prints were also used to illustrate human interest stories such as the "Fatherlend of Piracy" by Wilbur Forrest,[25] "A Job for a Man” by John Hawkins,[26] "Merely Men" by Reymond W. Sherman,[27] and “Death Stalks Underground" by Lowell Thomas.[28] Both the New York Herald Tribune and the Sunday Review of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle made special use of Allen's prints as opening page illustrations for their publications.[29] Allen's etching, "The Builders", was illustrated by the New York Times as one of the best prints of the year.[30]

James E. Allen has had many folds in his life in art, all opening to acclain, whether in commercial art, art circles, or in newspaper and magazine illustration. He was an adventurous and determined man who walked his paths with confidence. He excelled his determination to be a good artist through hard work and study for perfection. He achieved success. He was an all-American, who descended from pioneer heredity and ascended in art, to the Nation's Capital.

1. Press Journal (Louisiana, Missouri), March 18, 1938, n.p.

2. Anaconda-Standard, (Anaconda, Montana) January 1, 1933, p.1; Montana Standard, (Butte, Montana) January 12, 1933, p.l.

3. Ernest W. Watson "James E. Allen-A Virile American artist,” American Artist, v. 8 (February, 1944), p.12.

4. Author's personal interview with Mrs. Allen.

5. Who's Who in America, March 1, 1941, p. 3

6. Dallas Morning News, August 18,°1918, n.p.

7. From a personal biographical note, written by Allen for an art show.

8. Washington Post, February 27, 1988.

9. Standard-Star, (New Rochelle, New York), n.d., p. 4

10. Larchmont Times, February 17, 1944, n. p.;

11. The Sunday Star, (Washington, D.C.) March 6, 1938, n.p.

12. "Four Lithographs of Industry," Advertising and Selling, XXXX: (March 1938}, p. 40

13. From introduction on calendar from the United State Pipe and Foundry Co.

14. Washington Post, February 27, 1938, n.p.

15. Author's personal interview with Mr. Fox at Rolfe's Chop House

16. The Standard-Star, (New Rochelle, New York) January 5, 1939, p.8.;

17. The Larchmont Times, (Larchmont, New York) November 3, 1938, n.p.

18. The New York Herald Tribune, Section V, October 8, 1950, p. 5

19. New York Times, October 8, 1950, p. 9

20. Author 's personal interview and visit with Mrs. Allen at studio-home.

21. New York Herald Tribune Magazine, September 2, 1934, p.2

22. New York Herald Tribune Magazine, October 15, 1933, p.1

23. New York Herald Tribune Magazine, March 12, 1933, pp. 10, 11

24. New York Herald Tribune Magazine, September 2, 1934, p.2

25. New York Herald Tribune Magazine, May 20, 1934, p.6.

26. Collier's Magazine, September 17, 1934; p.22.

27. New York Herald Tribune Magazine, September 24, 1939, p.2.

28. New York Herald Tribune Magazine, November 18, 1934, p.2.

29. The Sunday Review of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 7, 1934, p.1.; March 24, 1934, p.1; The New York Herald Tribune Magazine, October 15, 1933, p.1.; September 3, 1933, p.1.

30. New York Times Magazine, December 29, 1940, p.8.

Bibliography

• Periodicals

  • Anonymous "Four Lithographs of Industry,"Advertising and Selling"", XXXI (March, 1939), p. 39-42
  • Bernays, Edward L. “Madison Avenue Heavies", Saturday Review, January 23, 1954, p. 46.
  • "The Days Work" etchings by James E. Allen, Graphic, XXVI (1937) pp. 475-6.
  • Hawkins, John, "A Job for a Man", Collier's Magazine, (1938) p. 22
  • Salmond-Volkmann, Flora "James E. Allen,” Gerbrauch Graphic, XV (1938) pp. 24-38.
  • Watson, Ernest W. "James E. Allen - A Virile American Artist", American Artist, VIII (February, 1944), pp. 12-15, 26.
  • Who's Who In America, March 1, 1941, p. 3.

• Newspapers

  • Anaconda (Montana) Standard, January 1,1933.
  • Camp Dick (Texas) Avion, 1918.
  • Christian (Boston, Mass. ) Science Monitor, January 3, 1933.
  • Daily Morning News, August 18, 1918.
  • Daily Oklahoman, December 13, 1942.
  • Larchmont (New York) Times, November 3, 1938.
  • ___ November 17, 1988
  • ___ February 17, 1944.
  • Montana (Butte, Montana) Standard, January 12, 1933.
  • New York Times, October 27,1932.
  • ___ April 24, 1934.
  • ___ May 2, 1934.
  • New York Times Magazine, December 29, 1950
  • New York Herald Tribune, October 23, 1928.
  • ___ March 2, 1934.
  • ___ December 1, 1940.
  • ___ October 8, 1950.
  • New York Herald Tribune Magazine, March 12, 1933.
  • ___ September 3, 1933.
  • ___ October 15, 1933.
  • ___ May 20, 1934.
  • ___ September 2, 1934.
  • ___ November 18, 1934.
  • ___ September 24, 1939.
  • Press (Louisiana, Missouri) Journal, March 18, 1938
  • The Sunday Review of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 7, 1934.
  • ___ March 25, 1934
  • Camp Dick (Texas) Avion, 1918.
  • Christian (Boston, Mass. ) Science Monitor, January 3, 1933.
  • Daily Morning News, August 18, 1918.
  • Daily Oklahoman, December 13, 1942.
  • Larchmont (New York) Times, November 3, 1938.
  • ___ November 17, 1988
  • ___ February 17, 1944.
  • Montana (Butte, Montana) Standard, January 12, 1933.
  • New York Times, October 27,1932.
  • ___ April 24, 1934.
  • ___ May 2, 1934.
  • New York Times Magazine, December 29, 1950
  • New York Herald Tribune, October 23, 1928.
  • ___ March 2, 1934.
  • ___ December 1, 1940.
  • ___ October 8, 1950.
  • New York Herald Tribune Magazine, March 12, 1933.
  • ___ September 3, 1933.
  • ___ October 15, 1933.
  • ___ May 20, 1934.
  • ___ September 2, 1934.
  • ___ November 18, 1934.
  • ___ September 24, 1939.
  • Press (Louisiana, Missouri) Journal, March 18, 1938
  • The Sunday Review of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 7, 1934.
  • ___ March 25, 1934