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Ginny Allen

Ginny Allen is an art historian and author. She is the co-author of Oregon Painters: The First Hundred Years, 1859-1959 (OHS Press, 1999) and has written articles on artist Melville Wire for the Oregon Historical Quarterly and American Art Review. Since 2004 she has worked on the WPA art inventory of the state of Oregon, with recent efforts to identify and help preserve and conserve works that were placed on loan to the Portland Public Schools. She is a long-time Portland Art Museum docent and art council member.

Author's Entries

  • Betty Chilstrom (1924–2014)

    Betty Chilstrom was an Oregon painter who used a distinctive impressionistic style to document buildings and scenes in the downtown and southeast neighborhoods of Portland through the second half of the twentieth century. She captured the character and architecture of many buildings and houses that no longer exist. “There were …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Childe Hassam (1859 - 1935)

    Childe Hassam, though not an Oregonian, created some of the best-known paintings of Oregon's landscape. A New Englander by birth (October 17, 1859) and choice, he was educated in Boston and Paris. Arguably one of America's best impressionist painters, he was a member of "The Ten," a group of painters …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Colista Dowling (1881-1968)

    Primarily known for her watercolors and book illustrations, Colista Dowling was a successful commercial artist in Portland for sixty years. Born in Waverly, Kansas, in 1881, Dowling was classically trained at the Art Students League in New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia. …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Eliza Barchus (1857-1959)

    In 1971, the Oregon legislature named Eliza Rosanna Lamb Barchus "The Oregon Artist." The tribute marked fifty years of Barchus’s work, paintings of western mountains and water features that spread a romantic ideal of the West to the rest of the country. Barchus was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Melville Wire (1877-1966)

    Melville Thomas Wire, an ordained minister of the Methodist Church, was a talented artist who successfully combined his work for the church with his avocation of outdoor painting in an impressionist style. Born in Austin, Illinois, on September 24, 1877, Wire moved with his family to Oregon when he was …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Percy Manser (1886-1973)

    Born in Kent, England, in 1886 and trained at the King Charles School of Art, Percy Manser immigrated to Canada in his early twenties. He loved the natural beauty of the Northwest, and in 1917 he and his wife Clementine settled in Hood River to begin life as orchardists. Manser …

    Oregon Encyclopedia

  • Thelma Johnson Streat (1912-1959)

    Thelma Johnson Streat was a multi-talented African American artist who focused on ethnic themes in her work. Born on August 29, 1912, in Yakima, Washington, to James and Gertrude Johnson, she moved with her family to Portland where she graduated from Washington High School. Streat began painting at the age …

    Oregon Encyclopedia