Obituary: Tribute to artist Jim Allen

WILLIAM ROBERT (JIM) ALLEN
22 JULY 1922 – 9 JUNE 2023

Before he became an artist, Jim Allen was a veteran of World War II, serving as a machine gunner, and also a skilled sailor, frequently journeying across the Hauraki Gulf and crossing the Tasman more than a dozen times.

After the war, Allen resolved to train as an artist, and travelled to London to undertake a degree in sculpture at London’s Royal College of Art, graduating in 1952. He then returned to New Zealand and committed himself to art education.

Alongside his pioneering art practice, Jim is regarded as the most influential art educator of his generation in Aotearoa and Australia, where he was a vital force in shaping the local art scene during the 1960s and 1970s. Employed by New Zealand’s Department of Education as part of the Gordon Tovey-led art education initiative, Jim undertook a radical hands-on teaching role in schools in the Far North alongside the revolutionary educator Elwyn Richardson.

Jim's commitment to student-led education informed his tenure as head of sculpture at Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland from 1960 to 1976. He is credited with rejuvenating Elam’s sculpture department, with a new emphasis on critical practice, and fostering a series of student-led initiatives after witnessing student involvement in the 1968 protests across the United Kingdom, Europe and the US.

This in turn spurred the development of a radically new local contemporary art scene which saw the creation of major sculptural projects in Auckland’s central city, international symposia which generated many public sculpture commissions that can still be seen today, off-site performance events, and a host of young students ready to challenge established norms in art.

Describing his approach to teaching, Jim said ‘My effort went into creating a supportive environment, encouraging experiment and exploration, insisting people find their own answer rather than providing them with one. I guess it was backdoor teaching, not leading from the front.’

As an artist, Jim realised several significant sculptural commissions across the country, and was a pioneer of post-object art. He believed ‘live’ performance offered an opportunity to directly engage with a rapidly changing world.

He instigated Auckland Art Gallery’s first performance art programme where he realised, with a team of students and artists, an ambitious three-part work, Contact, timed for the 1974 Auckland Festival. Unlike any previous exhibition at a public gallery in New Zealand, the participating artists did not show individual works of art; instead, they staged actions and performances within temporary sculptural installations, incorporating new video and ‘live playback’ technology to alter how audiences encountered the artworks.

The following year, he had a large solo exhibition of his new work O-AR II, 1975, staged at the gallery. In 1976, during his sabbatical year, he undertook a residency at the Experimental Art Foundation in Adelaide, where he continued to develop his performance practice. The same year he participated in the Biennale of Sydney with the performance installation There Are Always Elephants to Be Made Drunk, 1976.

After time in Adelaide, Jim became founding Head of the Sydney College of the Arts (1977-87). His return to Auckland in 1998 was once again marked by an engagement with art education (this time at Auckland University of Technology, from which he holds an honorary degree) and a reinvigoration of his experimental art practice, with him restaging many key early performance works.

In 2004, Jim was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to education and the arts, and in 2015 was awarded the Arts Foundation’s Icon Award Whakamana Hiranga, an honour that recognises the extraordinary achievements and impact of 20 of New Zealand’s most significant artists.

Jim had a lasting influence on the establishment of the contemporary art scene in Auckland and a life-long connection to the Auckland Art Gallery which holds a collection of his key works, from his early formal sculpture to his most radical performance works. It also holds his artist archive and, in 2021, Allen gifted three significant works to the gallery’s collection: Arena, 1970; Community, 1970; and O-AR II, 1975.

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