Christopher Allen (critic)

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Christopher Allen (born 1953)

art historian, critic
, and educator.

Biography

Born in Algiers to Australian parents, Allen was educated in the United Kingdom, Vietnam, Japan, France and Australia.

PhD at the University of Sydney.[1]

He was art critic for The Sydney Morning Herald from 1987 until 1991 and for the Australian Financial Review from 2005 until 2008. Since 2008 he is the national art critic for The Australian.

Allen has taught art history and theory at the

Classical Greek, Latin and senior Art History.[4] He was appointed to the Library Council of New South Wales (State Library) Board in 2019 for three-year term.[4]

In his critiques of works and artists, Allen emphasises

craftmanship, skill, and formal and aesthetic qualities. He deplores "bland, decorative surface[s]" and he points to "pseudo-political contemporary art", especially as expressed in the wall labels in museums.[5] Large-scale portraits, as commonly submitted to the Archibald Prize, are regular subjects of his criticism.[6]

Personal life

Allen is the grandson of World War II Major General Arthur Samuel "Tubby" Allen, the son of novelist and short story writer Robert Allen, and brother of poet, performer and filmmaker Richard James Allen.[7] He is married to Australian painter Michelle Hiscock.[2]

Publications

As author

  • La tradition du classicisme : essai sur la pratique et la théorie de la peinture classique de la Renaissance au dix-septième siècle français, thesis University of Sydney (1991)[8]
  • Art in Australia: From Colonization to Postmodernism (Thames & Hudson, 1997)
    ISBN 9780500203019
  • French Painting in the Golden Age (Thames & Hudson, 2003)
    ISBN 9780500203705
  • Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy, De Arte Graphica (translation and commentary, Librairie Droz, Geneva 2005, with Yasmin Haskell, Frances Muecke), on Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy's De arte graphica[9]
  • "Jeffrey Smart: Unpublished Paintings 1940–2007", essay (
    ISBN 9780975124598, on Jeffrey Smart
  • Salient: Contemporary Artists at the Western Front: 1918–2018 One Hundred Years On (King Street Gallery on William, 2018)
    ISBN 9780648086345

As editor/contributor

As translator

References

  1. ^ a b c Christopher Allen papers, 1979–1998, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
  2. ^ a b c d "Christopher Allen", interview by Margaret Throsby, Radio National, 18 April 2015
  3. ^ Matthew Westwood (1 July 2022). "Critic in the frame". The Australian. p. 14. Retrieved 1 July 2022.
  4. ^ a b "Revised Boards announced for NSW Cultural Institutions", Museums and Galleries of NSW, 6 December 2019
  5. The Weekend Australian
    , 22–23 August 2020
  6. ^ "Archibald 2019: When a portrait is a snap to paint" by Christopher Allen, The Australian, 3 May 2019
  7. ^ Profile, AustLit
  8. ^ "Rubénisme versus Poussinisme" by Christopher Allen, Diploma Lecture Series 2012: Absolutism to enlightenment: European art and culture 1665–1765, 14/15 March 2012. Art Gallery Society of NSW
  9. ^ "Review of Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy, De Arte Graphica" by Giovanni Mazzaferro, Letteratura artistica, 14 June 2019

External links

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