Al Allen’s visual moments
The late Al Allen of Little Rock was one of my favorite Arkansas artists, so yesterday I celebrated his birthday by moving my only Allen piece from a dark hallway wall to the living room. Though his name might not ring a bell, I bet you know his distinctive style—which often involved painting windows in ways which revealed the inner voyeur in all of us.
Alvin Lee Allen Jr. was born Nov. 29, 1925, in Steele, Mo., the only child of Carrie and Alvin Lee Allen. His father was an automobile dealer and his mother a seamstress. They lived apart much of the time, with Alvin spending most of the year with his mother in Memphis. During summer vacation, young Al spent much of his time with extended family in rural northeast Arkansas.
I think it is fair to say that Al Allen grew up as a neglected child. He might have seemed quiet to many, but he was a gifted storyteller. He made good use of his retirement writing two autobiographies—among the best memoirs by any Arkansan—in which he remembers waiting alone in bus stations, watching his small suitcase. Granted, he knew he had two loving parents, not to mention favorite aunts and uncles, but his autobiographies make clear that by our current standards he was neglected.
Being shuttled about among relatives in the rich cotton lands of the northern Delta, Allen picked up many artistic sensibilities. He noticed how the hot summer sun played against walls, how his aging relatives used colorful cloth to create remarkable quilts, and how a yard of colorful zinnias often surrounded the most stark and isolated tenant farmer’s house. His years at Memphis Central High School further developed his interest in art.
Graduating from high school near the end of World War II, Allen joined the Navy, where his artistic skills were put to use making threedimensional models of Pacific islands for the top-secret Terrain Model Workshop. Not long after the war, Allen married Juanita Jowers, and they became the parents of a son. The young family moved to Baton Rouge, where Allen enrolled at Louisiana State University to study art.
Graduating in 1950, Allen continued his academic work at LSU while teaching at a high school. Upon receiving his master’s degree in 1954, he began a college teaching career that brought him to Little Rock in 1968.
Allen was hired by Little Rock University, soon to become the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, with the charge of not only teaching a heavy load but also creating an art department from scratch. One colleague later recalled that “not only did he teach painting and other studio subjects, he was a teacher and advocate of art appreciation classes . . .” He also recruited a gifted faculty of both teachers and practicing artists. UALR named him Professor and University Artist-in-Residence in 1985. All this time, Allen was a practicing artist, turning out quite remarkable paintings with regularity.
UALR art professor Floyd W. Martin, author of the entry on Al Allen in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, wrote that “Allen’s paintings in the decade after his LSU studies were in an abstract expressionist vein.” This approach did not satisfy Allen, who hoped for a style with broader appeal.
Ultimately, Allen’s search led him to travel across the South taking photographs of what Floyd Martin called “enhanced visual moments, perhaps special light patterns or shapes that stood out.” He also tried to incorporate a sense of mystery in his paintings. This is where the window and other building elements, in their many forms and fragments, came onto the scene.
Professor Martin described Allen’s style as presenting “realistic subjects in a classical and abstract way.” That might sound contradictory, but a careful look at his work demonstrates exactly what Martin means. Fortunately, Al Allen’s work can be found in many collections, including the Arkansas Arts Center, which sponsored a comprehensive exhibit of Allen’s paintings in 1995. The Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock usually has a few Allen paintings on public view.
Al Allen died Feb. 14, 2008. He left us two fine autobiographies, Roads that Seldom Curve (1991) and Zinnias Grow on Either Side of the River (1995). And all those paintings.
Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in rural Hot Spring County. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com.