Gordon Allen is a renowned artist from the USA, his works include oils, watercolors and gouaches, etchings and illustrations. These are his words on his work and life.


Fd: How did Art and Fly Fishing get together in your life? How were your beginnings in these two different fields?

GA: I bought my first fly rod at age thirteen at a hardware store in the Adirondack Mountains in NY State when visiting a friend and classmate whose family had a summer home there. My friend and I caught brook trout in lakes and streams that summer, and I became solidly enthralled with fly fishing. By age twenty, I had embarked on a career as an artist and was illustrating for NY publishers, had illustrated a number of books on bird and big game hunting when five years into my career, I was contacted by writer, Art Lee, and asked to illustrate his new book, "Fishing the Dry Fly for Trout on Rivers and Streams". I spent the summer in the town of Roscoe, NY on the Beaverkill River working with Art on that book. It was my baptism by fire into the fly fishing publishing world. I later went on to work with Joan Wulff, illustrating her casting column for years, and I illustrated many books for publisher, Nick Lyons. Nick and Joan rare two of the finest people I have known in my publishing career. One of the things that draws me to fly fishing are the fine qualities of many, not all, of the people involved in the sport.

In my mid-twenties I had begun doing etchings and did a number with trout and salmon fishing subjects which were well received. I was also starting to paint in oil en plain air, wanted to paint in Canada one summer and asked Lee Wulff what he thought was the most beautiful river in Atlantic Canada. He told me it was the Margaree on Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, so I loaded up my truck with painting gear and fly rod and spent the summer painting on the Margaree. Paintings sold, and I went on to spend the next twelve summers on salmon streams and at salmon clubs in the various provinces of Atlantic Canada, painting and fishing.


Fd: What kind of techniques do you apply? How is your process? 

GA: I now paint in oil and watercolor, both in the studio and outside from life, and am still very engaged in etching as well as doing the occasional illustrating. My line drawings are used to illustrate the monthly newsletter, "The Angling Report".


Fd: Is there a particular message or feeling you want to convey through your works?

GA: The message I am trying to convey is the same one that most artists throughout history have been trying to express. It is that there is some unseen order behind the chaos of daily life, an order that is beautiful and profound and beyond what we can ordinarily perceive.


Fd: Any time for fly fishing? What are your favorite species and spots?

GA: Too little time. The recession in the US has mandated that I work harder than ever. That is OK, because I love my work and the entire process. I do miss summers spent of salmon rivers in Canada and hope to revive that tradition. I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where my wife, an economist, holds a distinguished chair at UNC, and there are a few trout streams near enough that I can occasionally get in a morning or afternoon of fishing. 

I have painted and fished on trout streams in Europe, Argentina, and all over North America. If I had to pick one place to fish and paint, I suppose it would be Argentina because the fishing is so rich and varied, and life there is so celebrated. I also particularly love Newfoundland, Canada, not for the fishing, which can be "skinny", but for the landscape, which is dramatic, and the people, who are the greatest.


Fd: What advice would you give to the starting artists that want to get into the fly-fishing world?

GA: Work really hard, produce something of value and do not fail to get your work out and seen widely.


Fd: Where can we find more about your artwork?

GA: My website, not well tended, gordonallenart.com has information about my work, including books that I illustrated and galleries where my etchings and paintings can be seen. I can also be contacted at gordarts@gmail.com.