ALLEN, GEORGE R. (1830-?). George R. Allen was born in Connecticut in 1830 and moved, probably in 1849, to Huntsville, Texas, where he advertised as a portrait painter. There he painted portraits of Henderson K. Yoakumqv and members of Sam Houston'sqv family, including Nancy Lea and Margaret Moffette Lea Houston.qv The severe style that characterizes his art is reminiscent of eighteenth-century Dutch portraiture. His work is stiff and rather two-dimensional with little modeling to the forms; and with the exception of flesh tones, his palette is almost colorless. After leaving Huntsville, Allen seems to have made Galveston the center of his activities.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Pauline A. Pinckney, Painting in Texas: The Nineteenth Century (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967).
Pauline A. Pinckney
