page_title: Robert Weir Allan
section_title: Aberdeeenshire and European travel
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Weir Allan / Aberdeeenshire and European travel
caption_attribution_description: English: reproduction of oil painting showing Venice with view of San Giorgio Maggiore
context_page_description: Robert Weir Allan was a Scottish-born painter known mainly for his depiction of landscape and marine subjects. He was born in Glasgow into a family that encouraged and valued his natural artistic ability. He exhibited at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts when aged 22, and two years later he had a painting selected for the Royal Academy, in London. In 1875–80 he attended the Académie Julian in Paris, and he was influenced by the French school of rustic naturalism and also by French Impressionism. Working plein-air, he developed a loose, painterly approach to landscape subjects. He was a prolific artist who travelled widely in Europe, India, Japan, the Middle East and America; however, he drew particular inspiration from the north-east coast of Scotland – a subject to which he returned throughout his life. He exhibited extensively in London, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and became vice-president of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours. He was equally at home with oil painting, and during his lifetime he had 84 paintings selected for exhibition at the Royal Academy. For the last 60 years of his life his home was in London, and he died there at the age of 90 in 1942.
context_section_description: In the summer of 1881 Allan travelled up Scotland's east coast to Aberdeenshire – coastal views of this area would become his archetypical subjects. A later article in a local newspaper, 'Tribute from Fraserburgh', explains: 'For this particular locality no painter has done so much as has Robert W. Allan. Coming here some 28 years ago [c.1881], he was fascinated by the grey skies, the ever-toiling sea with its burden of hardy fishermen in their brown and purple boats – a charm that has never left him … there is no truer or loftier exponent or interpreter of our East Coast scenery than is to be found in this charming artist.'
  Allan was a prolific, hard-working and popular artist. He travelled widely in Europe, and brought back watercolours that often included recognisable locations such as the Doge's Palace, Venice; Notre-Dame, Paris; and Dutch canal views while avoiding cliché. His work was widely exhibited, sold well, and received encouraging press notices. 'Southwark Bridge, London … with barges in the foreground, [is] diffused with fine colour against a soft grey sky, full of atmosphere and fine quality, such as no other picture in the exhibition shows,' one reviewer commented.
  In 1883 Allan took a studio in Haverstock Hill, Hampstead, and would make London his base for the rest his life – placing him in the centre of the British art world while also giving him access to Scotland through the rapidly developing railway routes.
caption: Venice with view of San Giorgio Maggiore – oil painting – date unknown
exif: {}