Chinese Children

Eleanor Allen Moore moved from Scotland to Shanghai in China with her doctor husband when he took up a post with the Public Health Department there in 1922.   She painted landscapes and townscapes in and around Shanghai but she was most interested in painting the Chinese people - men, women and children.  These were informal portraits of people going about their business and to capture them she had  to work quickly. The medium of watercolour allowed her to do this.  She continued to use oils for commissioned portraits.   Allen Moore was born in Northern Ireland but moved to Scotland with her family as a child.  They settled in Ayrshire when she was 6 and she attended Kilmarnock Academy for a short period before studying at Glasgow School of Art.