British painter working from the 1960s onwards in Abstract, Minimalism, Systems, Geometric, Pop and Op Art, through collages, paintings and prints.

Richard Allen was born in Worcester in 1933. On leaving school Allen studied agricultural engineering until 1952 when National Service took him to the Far East. On his return to England, Allen began studying art in Worcestershire, and in 1957 went on to Bath Academy of Art. Adrian Heath, Sir Howard Hodgkin, Martin Froy, Gwyther Irwin, and Malcolm Hughes were the major influences on Allen at Bath, where he studied both art and art eduction.

After completing his studies, Allen spent the early 1960s teaching at art schools such as Croydon College of Art (alongside Bridget Riley), and developing his own work. By 1964 he was exhibiting his Op Art work alongside contemporaries including Bridget Riley, Peter Sedgley, Michael Kidner, and Jeffrey Steele. Growing recognition of Allen’s work resulted in the University of Sussex staging his first solo exhibition in 1967.

Experimentation in new forms of expression took Allen to exhibit with the Matrix group in 1971, and stage a solo exhibition at the Angela Flowers Gallery in London the same year. The Arts Council’s Systems touring exhibition of 1972/73 included Allen’s work alongside fellow Matrix group members (including Jeffrey Steele, Michael Kidner, Gillian Wise, Malcolm Hughes, and Jean Spencer). In 1975 the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) staged a solo exhibition where Allen showed works featuring his own, unique, approach to the use of charcoal on canvas.

Continued experimentation and development from the 1970s through to the 1990s led to exhibitions across Europe, Japan, and the USA. Alongside his charcoal works Allen experimented with geometric abstraction prints, and a series of ‘White Paintings’ where white was applied in a strict linear structure over a single colour background.

Allen taught art throughout his life and worked as a visiting lecturer in universities and colleges across the England and Wales, including the Royal College of Art and Slade School of Fine Art. Towards the end of the 1990s Allen became ill with Motor Neurone Disease, and the illness led his premature death in 1999. Retrospective exhibitions of Allen’s work have been staged in the years since his death: most notably in 2008 at Offer Waterman Gallery, London and 2011 at the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath. In 2016-17 Allen’s untitled six panel Systems painting, owned by the Tate, was chosen as part of their BP Spotlight Display: Systems.