Troublemakers and Prophets: Elizabeth Allen and Other Visionary Artists
We are hardwired for stories, and boy, has Compton Verney got a great story in its new exhibition, Troublemakers and Prophets: Elizabeth Allen and Other Visionary Artists. The story, however, is hard to piece together, as there is so little information about Elizabeth Allen’s life and art. One of 17 children born in 1883 to an Irish mother and a German father, both tailors, Allen, who had scoliosis and what was then called a club foot, spent a lifetime in pain. Her family considered her behaviour uppity and called her Queen, a name Allen adopted.
When Allen asked her mother, Mary Anne, why she had been born with disabilities, she was told, “It’s the sins of the fathers falling on the children,” a response Allen rejected. Her mother, considering her an atheist, ejected her from the family home at the age of 25. Allen went on to develop her own particular relationship with God.
The Great Swan Song by Elizabeth Allen, shown at Troublemakers and Prophets. Photograph: © Jamie Woodley and Compton Verney
Allen had probably made appliqué pictures from scraps of material in her parents’ workshop using the inlay or intarsia patchwork technique (cutting out shapes from a top layer and placing contrasting fabric underneath the openings so the lower fabric shows through), and she now made a living as a seamstress, being “good at men’s trousers.” Here, the story gets rather patchy. In 1934, she was evicted from a cottage in Suffolk, moving in 1935 to a small, tumbledown, metal shack in the woods near Biggin Hill. She lived in isolation until she met Bridget Poole, a young student at Ravensbourne School of Art, in 1963. Poole, who was doing community work, eventually moved in with Allen, ultimately abandoning art school and being rejected by her family.
Home Sweet Home, Elizabeth Allen
In 1965, their isolation was invaded when Poole’s tutors, painter Trevor Bell and sculptor Kit Twyford, intrigued by accounts of Allen’s art and worried about Poole, visited the cottage. Fifty years later, Twyford recalled the scene: “A little old lady, reclining on a vivid green sofa, and wearing a dress the same shade of green. With her club foot in its enormous shoe, she was an extraordinary sight. Piled up against the wall and in a second room were what seemed to be hundreds of pictures made of fabric and mounted on hardboard.”
Entranced, they invited painters Patrick Heron and Michael Kidner to view Allen’s textile pieces. Intrigued by this naïve art of simple, colourful, symbolic textile panels featuring religious themes, Bible stories, prophecies of the end of the world, and idiosyncratic commentaries on contemporary life, they took 20 of Allen’s works to show a gallery and within two days arranged an exhibition at the Crane Kalman Gallery, which took place in February 1966. It was tremendously successful, reputationally and commercially, with nearly Allen’s whole collection of textile collages on display. A second exhibition the following year toured America and Spain. With her money, Allen bought a new house, but in 1967 died a few days before she could take possession.
Trouble Makers and Prophets at Compton Verney, 2026. © Jamie Woodley and Compton Verney
There are only 12 of Allen’s works in the exhibition. The most extraordinary is her Autobiraggraphy (1961), a book of textile works expressing Allen’s view of her life in strong, simple images. It relates incidents of afflictions and perceived slights, demonstrating how Allen, through her suffering, had fulfilled certain prophecies. Each image is explained on the reverse and gives an insight into Allen’s particular worldview. The pun in the title (her own) refers to how her work was called “rag art.” Apocrypha means “hidden things,” and Allen believed she could comprehend messages in the Bible that others had overlooked.
Additional works range from the obviously personal, like Alice in Jungle-Land, which depicts Allen and Poole, between them unrecognisable creatures, alluding to the world outside their cabin. Others take Apocryphal themes, as in The Three-Headed Eagle of Prophecy, referring to the prophet Ezra’s vision of a three-headed eagle with many wings and feathers, alluding to short-lived political leaders devoured by the three heads.
Elizabeth Allen, The Black Feet Are Kicking, shown in Troublemakers and Prophets at Compton Verney.
In later panels, Allen took a sideways view of the world she heard of on her radio, as in The Black Feet are Kicking, depicting black silhouetted figures and an enormous pair of feet descending from the sky alongside a huge brick adorned with an eye. It refers to the independence of emerging African states, and Allen believed she was fulfilling a prophecy of empires falling, as seen through a biblical lens in the Book of Daniel, where a huge stone crushes a statue with feet of clay.
Allen used recycled old clothing, as well as vilene, a textile that didn’t fray and took dyes well. She cut her images on her knee, usually at night, directly from the cloth. It would have been useful had there been more investigation of her techniques and materials, though there are little touch samples alongside most of Allen’s panels. Allen’s works have clearly influenced the textile artist Janet Bolton, sadly not in the exhibition. However, Ila Colley, Compton Verney’s folk art curator, has selected pieces by other artists, including Helen Chadwick, Mireille Delice, Rebecca Nasauer, and Louise Odes Neaderland. Some of these other pieces were specially commissioned to examine the broad themes around being a troublemaker and a prophet. Several are interesting, but on the whole, not immensely relevant. They are a way to extend a show that has few traceable works by Elizabeth Allen available for display.
Elizabeth Allen, Black Trinity (Three Silhouettes)
Allen’s works are direct and intriguing. The appeal of such folk art to Pop artists in the 1960s must have been strong, whilst the work of an unknown, untrained artist beguiled critics and artists alike. Her work remains a crucial example of Outsider art, work by someone very much from the fringes of society that demonstrates a raw, unconventional, and solitary approach to creation. Her resistance to being “othered” is strong and appealing. In that sense, it stands the test of time.
Colley has done an enormous amount of interpretation, based on a relatively small amount of verifiable information. It’s very much a stab in the dark, but it’s a fun exhibition to visit. There is certainly a great story that would make an intriguing play. Overall, Troublemakers and Prophets serves as a provocation to question the role of the artist and undoubtedly that of the curator.
Written by Corinne Julius
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Further Information:
Troublemakers and Prophets: Elizabeth Allen and Other Visionary Artists is on show until Monday 31 August 2026 at Compton Verney, Warwickshire, UK.
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Image Credits:
Lead: ‘Wrongfully’ Elizabeth Allen, in patterned skirt, being evicted. Photograph: Elizabeth Allen.
All further images as credited in captions.