Robert Weir Allan
Scottish (1851-1942)
Landscapist and marine painter Robert Weir Allan was born in Glasgow in 1851, the son of a printer-publisher. Allan was encouraged to pursue art from a young age and worked as a lithographer in the family business before he received any formal schooling. His paintings were selected for exhibition at the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts in 1873 and the Royal Academy in London in 1875. He moved to Paris later that year to study at Académie Julien and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Alexandre Cabanel. Allan travelled to Spain shortly after completing his education in Paris, and painted in Holland, Italy, Greece, India and Japan over the course of his career. He was a member of the Royal Color Society, Royal Scottish Water Color Society, and the Society of British Artists. He exhibited extensively in his native Glasgow, as well as in London and in Paris at the Salon des Artistes Français and the Exposition Universelle, where he was awarded a silver medal in 1889.
Robert Weir Allan works reside in the numerous public collections including the National Gallery of Scotland, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Windsor and Royal Borough Museum, the Ulster Museum, and the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.
