More Stories from the History of Writing Painting

Allan comes originally from the Manitoba prairies. Of Mennonite heritage, he has travelled and studied extensively outside Canada. He spent eight years living in Switzerland and another three years in north-eastern Brazil. Allan became a painter after visiting a Paul Klee exhibit in Martigny, Switzerland. He was taken by the emotive power in the Swiss painter’s work and began to study his methods and technique. He made many trips to the Paul Klee collection and later museum in Bern, and began painting on his own, at first using cheap watercolour sets from the local supermarket, and later moving on to professional-quality materials. For much of his life, Allan confined himself to small-scale watercolours as he didn’t have much time to spare from a professional life as a music and art teacher. Some works were actually created in the classroom. Since his retirement he has been able to attempt larger works in other media. However, he remains partial to watercolour even for large abstracts as he finds the unpredictable nature of the medium to be inspiring. Most of Allan’s work is abstract expressionist, but he occasionally paints representational works. His studio is located in a century-old farmhouse in the Niagara region of Ontario, Canada.