Adrian Paul Allinson [also known as Alfred Paul Allinson] was born Alfred Pulvermacher Allinson at 4 Spanish Place, Manchester Square, London, England on 9 January 1890. He was the son of Thomas Richard Allinson, a physician, and Hannah [also known as Anna] Allinson (née Pulvermacher), a German-born Jewish portrait painter.
He initially studied medicine but switched to art and enrolled at the Slade School of Art, University College, London, where he was taught by Henry Tonks and Philip Wilson Steer from 1910 to 1912. Allinson subsequently worked as a sculptor, painter, set designer, illustrator and poster designer. He designed posters for theatre companies, British Railways (Southern Region) and the Empire Marketing Board and sets for Beecham Opera Company. During the 1940s he painted four pictures used as carriage prints by Southern Railway. He also contributed caricatures and drawings to the Daily Express, Weekly Dispatch, Daily Graphic and other publications. A caricature (possibly of G. K. Chesterton) by him is illustrated in The Gypsy vol. 1, no. 1, May 1915 p. 33.
In 1915 he exhibited 15 works at the Chenil Gallery in London under the name Alfred P. Allinson. Under the name Adrian Paul Allinson he also exhibited at Brook Street Art Gallery, Cooling & Sons Gallery, Fine Art Society, Goupil Gallery, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, Leicester Gallery, London Salon, New English Art Club, Royal Academy, Royal Society of British Artists, Redfern Gallery and Royal Institute of Oil Painters in London; the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh; the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; Manchester City Art Gallery; and at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. He was elected a member of the London Group in 1914; Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) in 1933, and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI) in 1935.
Allinson taught painting and drawing at Westminster School of Art in London.
By the time of his marriage the Adelaide A. Clark in 1919, he had changed his name to Adrian Paul Allinson, He lived in London; Switzerland from c.1919 to 1925; and, for many years, on the Isle of Man. He died in London on 20 February 1959.
