Accession[1993.0163] PAPERS OF FRANCES DERHAMIdentifierUMA-ITE-1993016300001Extentnot specifiedScope and ContentSepia photographic portrait of artist Mary Cecil Allen dressed in turtleneck, bowlers hat and pearl necklace posing with hand on hip. Inscribed on verso: Mary Cecil Allen in Paris 1919. Allen (2 September 1893 - 7 April 1962[) was an Australian artist, writer and lecturer. Mary Cecil Allen was the daughter of Harry Brookes Allen (1854-1926), a pathologist and medical administrator, and Ada Rosalie Elizabeth, née Mason (1862-1933), a community worker. She and her sisters, Edith Margaret and Beatrice (Biddy), spent their childhood living in a staff house at the University of Melbourne where their father was an anatomy professor and the Dean of Medicine. Mary studied under Fred McCubbin at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School entering the faculty of arts in 1910. She was a member of Australian Art Association, the Victorian Artists' Society and the Twenty Melbourne Painters during the 1920s. She lived most of her adult life in America, where she was known as Cecil Allen. Allen initially painted landscapes and portraits in her early career, but changed to modernist styles including cubism from the 1930s. In 1927 Allen lectured at New York City venues including the Metropolitan Museum, Columbia University and other institutions. She was sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation. Allen wrote two books of art criticism, The Mirror of the Passing World (1928) and Painters of the Modern Mind (1929), based on her lectures. In 1930 she curated the first exhibition of Australian art in New York, "First Contemporary All-Australian Art Exhibition", at the Roerich Museum. During her lectures and talks in Australia, she helped introduce the ideas of modernism to Melbourne women and artists. After living in New York, from 1949 Allen lived in Provincetown at its art colony. In 1963 the Art Teachers Association of Victoria established the Mary Cecil Allen Memorial Lecture delivered annually.Access StatusOpen for public accessRequest TypeRequest unitUnit1993.0163 Unit 0004Copyright StatusPublic domainConditions of Use and ReproductionThis image is out of copyright. It is provided for research purposes and must not be reproduced without acknowledgement of the University of Melbourne Archives. For information about ordering a copy of this image contact the University of Melbourne Archives: archives@archives.unimelb.edu.au.MenuBrowse digitised items | Available online | Items in the public domain
Derham, Frances, Mary Cecil Allen in Paris (1919), [UMA-ITE-1993016300001]. University of Melbourne Archives, accessed 24/04/2025, https://archives.library.unimelb.edu.au/nodes/view/271819
