Allan R. Banks

Biographical Information

A native of Dearborn, Michigan, Allan R. Banks is a highly accomplished artist whose credentials speak for themselves. He was the recipient of the Elizabeth T. Greenshields Memorial Fellowship in 1972 and 1973, The Stacy Award in 1974 and later, an Ohio Arts Council Award.

Comprehensive classical training under Richard Lack and later, R.H. Ives Gammell at his private studios in Williamstown, Massachusetts, contributed substantially to the development of Banks' work. Visits to Europe brought about a further development in the direction of his art and a rediscovery of the role of plein-air painting.

Today, Allan Banks is one of America's finest living plein-air figure painters. He has exhibited widely in galleries and museums across the country with numerous works in private and public collections including the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, The Newark Museum, and the Springville Museum. In September 1996, Banks was one of a group of six American artists to be invited to work and exhibit with the Union of Russian Artists in Moscow.

The recent publication of his works as prints has attracted an international following of dealers and collectors. Publications of his work include featured cover artist for American Artist, August 1987, and the Classical Realism Journal, 1993 and 1996. Mr. Banks is listed in Who's Who in American Art, Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the Southwest, and in the Dictionary of International Biography. He is currently on file in the Smithsonian Institution, the National Portrait Galleries in London, England, and Washington, D.C., the Witt Library in London, the Capitol Hill Club, and the White House.

Mr. Banks paints a variety of work ranging from portraits, interiors to garden paintings. His commissioned portrait work includes U.S. Congressman Hamilton Fish, and most recently the actor, Robert Montgomery, Jr.

Exhibitions include a 1996 touring museum group show of the Classical Realism Society guild members (7) Boston to Milwaukee Museum to Minneapolis. Critical acclaims were received for his work in a 1997 museum touring exhibition, "East Coast Ideals" Carnegie Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California. October 1997, Mr. Banks was one of seven contemporary artists to show at Sotheby's in New York. In May 1998, an exhibition including his work was held in London, England at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.