Thomas Allen (1849-1924)

Born in St. Louis, Thomas Allen was a painter especially known for landscape and animal subjects.  He settled in Boston where he chaired the faculty of the Boston Museum School of Drawing and Painting and was also President of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Allen was the son of a Congressman.  He studied art in his home town of St. Louis, Missouri at Washington University and then traveled widely.  In 1869, he went to the Rocky Mountains with one of his professors, and in 1871 was in Ecouen, a suburb of Paris, France.  The next year he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dusseldorf, Germany, and remained until his graduation in 1877.

In 1878, he traveled again to the West and also to Texas where he painted in San Antonio including a work titled Evening at the Market in San Antonio, which received recognition at the Paris Salon of 1882. 

By 1882, he was settled in Boston, where he had a long and distinguished career.  He died in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Exhibition venues include the Paris Salon, National Academy of Design, Boston Art Club, and Art Institute of Chicago.


Sources include:
John and Deborah Powers, Texas Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists
Peter Hastings Falk, Editor, Who Was Who in American Art