Joyce L. McC Allen :: biography at Design and Art Australia Online

Joyce L. McC Allen b. 1916 Brisbane, Qld.

Also known as:

Joyce L. McC Isles
Joyce Allen

Artist (Painter) , (Printmaker)

Brisbane born painter and printmaker and a student of Thea Proctor and Joy Ewart. Allen was a regular exhibitor with the Print Council of Australia and in 1991 was awarded the Visual Arts and Crafts Board of the Australia Council's Emeritus Award.

Talk | Version history | Updated Dec. 5, 2011 | Created Jan. 1, 1996

Name

Joyce L. McC Allen

Also known as:

Joyce L. McC Isles
Joyce Allen

Birth date

4 January 1916

Birth place

Brisbane, Qld.

Death date

30 July 1992

Death place

Bowral, NSW

Gender

Female

Roles

Artist (Painter)
Artist (Printmaker)

Residence

1970- 1992 Bowral, NSW
c.1939- c.1970 Sydney, NSW
c.1916- c.1939 Brisbane, Qld.

Other Occupation

Art teacher

Active Period

c.1940- c.1991

Languages

English

Is Indigenous

Initial Record Data Source

Black and white artists

Biography

printmaker and painter, was born in Brisbane on 4 January 1916, daughter of Joselyn Salisbury and Clifford Isles, a director of Isles, Love & Co, auctioneers. She married Max Allen in 1939; they had three children Sarah (Mrs Clive Lucas), Jocelyn and Nicholas, who donated a large collection of her prints to the National Gallery of Australia [NGA]. Joyce Allen, a friend of the printmaker Ailsa Allan , made her first linocuts in the late 1940s, e.g. The Pied Piper 1947, which was intended as an illustration to Robert Browning’s poem and hence never editioned. In the 1950s she attended classes given by Thea Proctor but only began working seriously on her prints in the early 1960s when her friend Ysobel Irvine introduced her to Willoughby Art Workshop and the teachings of Joy Ewart . There she met Elizabeth Rooney , under whose guidance she experimented with etching, although linocut remained her primary medium. Allen’s linocuts include Within a Week 1967 (Art Gallery of New South Wales, purchased by Hal Missingham from the exhibition Sydney Printmakers , Blaxland Galleries, 3 September 1967), The Pursuit of Trivia 1986, At the Gallery 1987 (private collection [p.c.]), Fury 1989, Death in the Dump 1989 (p.c.) and Muddle 1980s (every mother’s domestic situation). She always painted watercolour landscapes too.

Allen exhibited with the Australian Watercolour Institute and the Society of Artists in the late 1950s, with the Sydney Printmakers at Blaxland Galleries in the early 1960s and in Australian Print Council exhibitions in 1967, 1969 and 1971. She held solo exhibitions at the Willoughby Art Centre and with the Bowral and Berrima Art Societies. Her prints were included in the 1968 Bradford Print Biennale (UK) in 1968, with Baldessin , Ruth Faerber, Graham King, Elizabeth Rooney and Stephen Spurrier.

Allen and her husband moved to Bowral in 1970 where she taught briefly at the Heartfield School and continued to teach part time with the Bowral Art Society. A retrospective exhibition of her linocuts was held at Scheding Berry Gallery, Sydney in 1986 – the year a large collection of her works was acquired by the NGA (added to by her children in 1993 so that the gallery now has over 100 prints ranging from 'Backyard, Sydney’ 1947 and 'The giant pouring water’ and 'Title Page: The Lonely Giant’ 1948 to 'Diners’ and Still life in the dump 1991). She had a solo exhibition at australian [sic] Girls’ Own Gallery [aGOG], Canberra, in 1990 and her work was included in several group shows at this gallery. In 1991 she received the Visual Arts and Crafts Board of the Australia Council’s Emeritus Award but died suddenly at Bowral on 30 July 1992, just after a retrospective exhibition of her work had opened at Macquarie Galleries, Sydney. Helen Maxwell Galleries, Canberra (formerly aGOG) gave her another small solo show in June-July 2001.

Writers:: Staff Writer
Date written:: 1996
Last updated:: 2007

Date: 1989

Fury

Date: 1989

At the Gallery

Date: 1987

The Pursuit of Trivia

Date: 1986

Muddle

Date: 1980

Within a Week

Date: 1967

Title Page: The Lonely Giant

Date: 1948

Backyard, Sydney

Date: 1947

The Pied Piper

Date: 1947

Collections

Citations:

Wood, L., (1976), Print Council of Australia Directory, (ALSO: 1982)
Maxwell, Helen, (1992), 'Joyce Allen a personal tribute', (Place: Imprint vol. 27, no.3, spring, pp.12-13)
Maxwell, Helen, (1990), 'Joyce Allen', (Place: australian Girls Own Gallery exhibition catalogue, Canberra, ACT)
Lendon, Nigel, (1986), Linocuts 1947 1986: A survey exhibition, (Place: Scheding Berry Fine Art catalogue, Sydney, NSW)
Gillespie, Janie, (1969), 'Emerging from Isolation: Joyce Allen and Lidia Groblicka', (Place: Australian National Gallery Association News, Canberra, ACT, January-February)
Debenham, Pam, (1993), (obituary), (Place: Art & Australia, 03-30)
Butler, Roger, (1995), 'Joyce Allen', (Place: Sydney By Design)
Butler, Roger, (1986), 'Joyce Allen', (Place: Imprint, vol. 21, iss.1 2)
Maxwell, Helen, (1993), Joyce Allen Retrospective, (Place: Australian Girls Own Gallery catalogue, Canberra, ACT 09-25/10-21)
Desmond, Michael & Dixon, Christine, (1995), 1968, (NGA exhibition catalogue), Type: catalogue

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Joyce L. McC Allen b. 1916 Brisbane, Qld.

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