John Charles Allcot
- Date of birth
- 1888
- Date of death
- 1973
- Notes
- John Allcot was born in 1888 in Liverpool, England. At the age of 14 Allcot was apprenticed to Tillotson & Son Ltd, lithographers, and attended classes at the Liverpool Institute and School of Art. In 1906 he worked in the Mersey tugboats and the following year sailed to Australia as a deck-boy. Desperate to paint, he would scrounge ship's paint, sailcloth and handkerchiefs with which to depict the sea, ships and life on board. Arriving in Sydney in 1909, Allcot worked on coastal, island and intercolonial vessels out of Sydney before giving up the sea in 1912. Supporting himself by painting theatre sets, he obtained commissions for ship paintings from Sydney photographers and toured the countryside, completing landscapes which he exhibited regularly with the Royal Art Society of New South Wales from 1920. Allcot gained widespread recognition in the 1920s with a series of oil paintings (on the founding of the Australian colonies) which were later acquired by the Australasian Pioneers' Club. He also worked as an illustrator and wrote articles about the sea for the Sydney Mail. In the 1940s he painted the seas for ship-models built by the sculptor Robert Klippel. Allcot's painting of the Cutty Sark was presented to the Duke of Edinburgh in 1954. As a maritime artist, Allcot exhibited widely in Australia and the USA. Painting in water-colour, gouache, and oils, Allcot represented a detailed, romantic representation of maritime life at a time of great change in the shipping industry. While best known for his ships, he continued to enjoy painting landscape and still life. Allcot was a fellow (1956) of the local Royal Art Society, a member of the League of Ancient Mariners and of the Shiplovers' Society. He was elected an honorary life member (1962) of the Australasian Pioneers' Club and appointed O.B.E. in 1970. Allcot died in 1973 at North Sydney. His work is represented in private and public collections in Australia and abroad. Source: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/allcot-john-charles-9334
