Key Information
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Walton, Allan
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1891-1948
History
Allan Walton was born in 1891, in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire and educated at Harrow. He then studied architecture under Arnold Mitchell in London and art at the Westminster School of Art under W.R. Sickert. He also studied at the Slade School and in Paris. Walton was appointed Director of Glasgow School of Art in 1943, probably on W.O. Hutchison's advice. He was already well known at the Glasgow Art School as the external assessor in Textile Design for the four Scottish Art Schools. Walton was popular with staff and students, regularly holding tea-parties for students in the director's rooms and entering into the spirit of student concerts where authority figures like himself were mocked. He had his own successful business in the south of England, Allan Walton Textiles, which produced printed furnishing materials. Their products featured designs by Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell, Frank Dobson, and Walton himself. He also executed commissions for interior decoration, garden design, and designed electric fires and furniture. Allan Walton Textiles' products are considered to be among the finest of their type, and Walton was elected one of the first Royal Designers for Industry. There is an archive of material from Walton's firm in the Archive of Art & Design at the V&A.
Walton had been educated at Harrow. He then studied architecture under Arnold Mitchell in London and art at the Westminster School of Art under W.R. Sickert. He also studied at the Slade School of Art and in Paris. He exhibited widely in Britain and abroad, and lived mainly in London and Shotley, Suffolk. In 1948 he was appointed Professor of Textile Design at the Royal College of Art, but became ill and died on 12 September 1948 before he could take up the post.