Robert Weir Allan (1851–1942) 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 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.
Artistic ambitions
Robert Weir Allan was born in Glasgow on 11 November 1851. In partnership with the engraver William Ferguson, his father, David Allan, had built up a successful printing and publishing business that operated from Argyll Street in the centre of the city.George Fairfull Smith, Allan and Ferguson's Views in Glasgow. Robert ('Bob') was the seventh of eight children.Ancestry.com, 1861 Scotland census. Parents: David Allan, 51 [his age on the 1861 census is given as 57; this appears to be a transcription error as the 1851 census and 1871 census both give his birth date as c.1810] and Catherine Allan, 44 [née Glassford]. Children: Mary S Allan, 24; Alexander Glassford Allan, 15; John G Allan, 13; Robt W Allan, 9; James A Allan, 5. The 1851 census shows three older siblings not recorded in 1861: David Allan (born c.1832), Catherine Glassford Allan (born c.1841) and Christina Glassford Allan (born c.1843). He grew up in a household that appreciated art: his father 'dabbled a little with colours' and owned a small collection of paintings.Mrs Arthur Bell (N. D'Anvers), 'Robert Weir Allan and His Work', International Studio, vol. 14, no. 56 (October 1901), p. 229. The 1871 census shows that 'Allan and Ferguson' was very much a family business, with Catherine, Chrestina (sic – presumably Christina), John and James Allan all being 'lithographers', while Robert and his younger brother, James, were described as 'artist lithographers'.Ancestry.com, 1871 Scotland census: 263 New City Rd, Maryhill, Glasgow. Household: David Allan, 61; Catherine G. Allan, lithographer, 30; 'Chrestina' G. Allan, lithographer, 28; John G. Allan, lithographer, 23; Robert W. Allan, artist lithographer, 29; James A. Allan, artist lithographer, 16. It is likely that David Allan's wife died before this census date.
It had been assumed by his parents that Robert would carry on the business, but 'so strong ... was Robert Allan's love of art ... that his parents wisely allowed him to follow his bent.'Bell, 'Robert Weir Allan and His Work', p. 229. In 1873 his oil painting A Sunny Day at the Sea was exhibited at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, and two years later his ambition to be an artist was further fuelled with the selection of Waiting the Tide for the Royal Academy's summer exhibition in London.His address in the Royal Academy catalogue for 1875 was 188 St Vincent Street, Glasgow. These seafaring subjects were executed at the time when his older brother Alexander Glassford Allan became a qualified ship's captain.Ancestry.com: Alexander Glassford Allan qualified as 'second mate' on 3 February 1868 and as 'master' on 21 April 1873. Later in 1875, David Allan died, providing Robert and his siblings with a useful inheritance.1875 Scotland, National Probate Index (Calendar of Confirmations and Inventories), 1876–1936: probate for David Allan (Lithographer) 27 January 1876. He died on 24 November 1875 (i.e. aged 65). Probate granted to Robert Weir Allan (artist), Catherine Glassford Allan and Christina Glassford Allan, all residing at 11 Clarendon Place, New City Road, Glasgow, and William Caldwell, writer, Glasgow. Value of estate £2,403, additional estate £1,830 from corrective inventory provided by William Caldwell. The total amounts to about £492,000 in 2019's terms.
'Careful yet careless days'
Feeling the need for formal art training, Robert Allan took the bold step of moving to Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian from 1875 to 1880.Académie Julian archives. The Académie was welcoming of foreign students and was regarded as a stepping stone to the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where Allan trained under Alexandre Cabanel.Bell, 'Robert Weir Allan and His Work', p. 230.
Allan hired a studio in the Boulevard d'Enfer, where his bare walls became covered with sketches and studies. The community of English-speaking fellow art students were very supportive of each other – former Slade School of Art student Arthur Bell and Belgian-British writer Nancy Meugens (later Mrs Bell)Arthur George Bell fl.1849–1916 (Suffolk Artists website). Nancy Regina Emily Meugens (1844–1933) wrote under the pen-name N. D'Anvers, and published her International Studio magazine article on Allan under the name 'Mrs. Arthur Bell'. were frequent visitors. In an article in International Studio magazine, Nancy describes the 'hard-work and frugal living' of those 'careful yet careless days'. Allan had a 'deeply interesting personality, with a rare power of winning the hearts of those with whom he was brought in contact'.Bell, 'Robert Weir Allan and His Work', p. 230. To keep homesickness at bay, porridge was eaten, 'a store of the wherewithal having been sent for from the northern home in a goodly sack'.Bell, 'Robert Weir Allan and His Work', p. 232.
Watercolour and plein-air work
As Allan would always remain a landscape painter, it is difficult to assess what he took from a training as centred on life-study classes as was that of the Académie. Mrs Bell notes that Allan's years in Paris coincided with the emergence of Jules Bastien-Lepage as the leader of the French 'rustic naturalist' plein-air movement, and it was he 'who exercised perhaps more influence on [Allan] than did any of the men under whose direct criticism he studied'.Bell, 'Robert Weir Allan and His Work', p. 232. Allan was using the spontaneity of the watercolour medium for a series of plein-air studies of coastal and market views that he sent back to English and Scottish exhibitions.French Fishing Boat with Figures, Cancale and Village Well in Brittany were exhibited at the Glasgow Institute in 1876. His bold and painterly style was inspired to some extent by the Impressionists, whose exhibitions were a cause célèbre in Paris in 1875–6.
In 1878 Allan was visited by his friend Arthur Melville, a young artist from East Lothian.The sale of Arthur Melville's A Cabbage Garden, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1878, provided funds for his trip to Paris – see National Galleries Scotland website, Arthur Melville, A Cabbage Garden. Together they travelled in Normandy and Brittany, producing coastal views and rural subjects.Christopher Brickley, 'Arthur Melville and Presbyterian Realism,' PhD thesis, University of St Andrews, 1996, p. 153: 'The parallels in subject matter, dates and locations suggest definite contact between the artists throughout Melville's stay in France.' In Paris, Melville also studied at the Académie Julian,As Arthur Melville is not recorded in the Académie Julian archives, it is possible that this was a part-time or short-stay attendance. and he stayed at Allan's studio in the Boulevard d'Enfer. Mrs Bell recalls that 'The Scotch songs sung, the wild reels danced in Mr. Allan's studio, which sometimes alarmed the natives admitted to share in the revels, kept home memories alive.'Bell, 'Robert Weir Allan and His Work', p. 232. An oil portrait of Robert Allan by Arthur Melville dating from 1878 was dedicated 'A mon ami R W Allan'.Brickley, 'Arthur Melville and Presbyterian Realism', p. 158, and on p. 153 Brickley suggests that the watercolour portrait in Aberdeen Art Gallery is a study for the now lost oil. Through Allan, Melville was introduced to watercolour painting and the innovative technique – which critics would describe as 'blottesque'In an article in the Evening Mail of 31 May 1867 it is claimed that the term, as a nickname, was coined by John Ruskin. Arthur Melville was a more extreme exponent of the technique, and this is discussed in Brickley, 'Arthur Melville and Presbyterian Realism', pp. 35 117. – where blots and runs were used to suggest form.
Making his mark
During the summer vacation of 1879 Robert Allan revisited Scotland – an oil painting August in Fifeshire was selected for the Royal Academy the following year, and several watercolours such as Village of CrailDaily Review, 2 February 1880. and Fishing Boats in a Harbour also date from this time. After completing his studies in Paris in 1880 he visited Spain,A 'Spanish subject' was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy exhibition in February 1881. This may have been the watercolour Market Place, Grenada that had been purchased by John Forbes White, a wealthy Aberdeen flour-mill owner, and which was subsequently sold by him in 1888 (Aberdeen Press and Journal, 3 December 1888). before returning to Scotland as a base,His address in the Royal Academy catalogue for 1880 was 126 Renfield Street, Glasgow and in the autumn of that year he painted further Fife-located subjects.A watercolour of the Island of May (located off the Firth of Forth) is inscribed 'To my friend James Duncan, September 1880', and Leuchars Parish Church (in Fife) was exhibited in February 1881 at the Royal Scottish Academy (Glasgow Herald, 28 February 1881).
Ironically, it was through a non-typical work that Allan 'made his mark outside of his immediate art-circle'. Mrs Bell explains that, 'owing to a fortunate conjunction of circumstances', Robert Allan was the only artist who witnessed the interment of the writer Thomas Carlyle, on 10 February 1881 in Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire.Bell, 'Robert Weir Allan and His Work', p. 234. His watercolour Funeral of Thomas Carlyle owes more to the French rustic naturalist school than is evident in most of his work. When it was exhibited at the Glasgow Institute in September 1881 the Galloway News described it as 'the picture of the Exhibition ... Mr. Allan ... is one of our best water-colour painters, but such a great work as this will make for him an enduring reputation in the art world. The drawing is ... an artistic trophy, worthy of our National galleries.'Galloway News and Kirkcudbrightshire Advertiser, 9 September 1881 – review of the fourth exhibition of the Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour, held at the Glasgow Institute. Perhaps in response to this suggestion, Allan worked the watercolour up as an oil painting.The Aberdeen Evening Express of 30 November 1887 notes that Funeral of Thomas Carlyle was exhibited in at the Aberdeen Artists' Society. In the context of the article it appears to be the oil-painting version of the composition. The oil painting was gifted to Glasgow Museums by the artist in 1911. Allan revisited the subject with a further watercolour drawing and also an etching exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1885. An etching of this subject is in the National Trust Collection (NT 263471), where it is credited to 'Robin Alan'.
Aberdeenshire and European travel