Chris Allan’s career was spent in the museum world, but his heart lay in art – and how to create it. Born in Newbury in 1946 and schooled in Bedford, he graduated from both Edinburgh University and Edinburgh College of Art, gaining a first in Fine Art in 1970. Subsequently he forged a successful career as Curator of Prints at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester University, becoming Deputy Director of the Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow University, in 1977.

Creating art was for years an out-of-hours activity, until he seized the opportunity of early retirement in 1996. His early interests had lain in abstract painting but over the past 15 years he has re-focused his work to explore the natural world around us. The results are expressed through acrylic and watercolour paintings, and in intaglio printmaking – etching, aquatint and drypoint.