James Edmund Allen
James Edmund Allen
1894 - 1964
Person TypeIndividual
Terms
BiographyAllen was born in 1894 in Louisiana, Missouri and shortly thereafter moved to Mill Creek, Montana. Here he would begin to develop his skills as an artist, first as an illustrator portraying the muscle and might of America. At the onset of WWI, Allen joined the U.S. Armed Forces, which took him to Belgium and Germany. Upon return from Europe, he would work as an illustrator and artist, living with fellow artists in the Interlaken Colony near Asbury Park, NY. In 1925, he traveled to Paris where he shared an apartment with printmaker Howard Cook. Here he would begin to experiment with various media, among them lithographs and etchings. He later returned to the U.S. and worked as a printmaker for Joseph Pennell and William Auerbach-Levy. Allen enjoyed commercial success during the 1930s illustrating for magazines, notably Collier's and Good Housekeeping and in 1937 he was commissioned to produce twelve lithographs for the United States Pipe and Foundry Company. [IFPDA]
