Background
He was born at Retreat House, Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland, the youngest son of William Allan and his wife Anne.
He was born at Retreat House, Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland, the youngest son of William Allan and his wife Anne.
He studied art in Belfast and Dublin, and continued his art education in Antwerp, alongside contemporary Richard Moynan.
He returned to Ireland in 1889 and lived for a year or two in Downpatrick, County Down, before moving to Dublin. He began exhibiting at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in 1889 with a painting entitled Country Road near Antwerp. He also painted local scenes around Dublin and County Down as well as portraits, studio pieces and figure studies.
Allan"s work is extremely rare on the market today and it may be that most of his work has been destroyed.
The National Gallery of Ireland holds one example, A Dutch Interior, which was included in ‘The Irish Impressionists’ exhibition in 1984.