and a further two were finalists in 1925. During early September 1921 Allen exhibited a set of fifty-four oil paintings at the Fine Art Society's Gallery in Melbourne. In 1925 Allen became the first female art critic for The Sun. She studied under Max Meldrum, a tonal impressionist whose students, Arnold Shore and Jock Frater, had been experimenting with modernism. At this point, Allen was not yet a fan of modernism — she criticised Shore's work in The Sun and said that post-impressionists "create nothing but monsters–they invent the abnormal" during one of her lectures. In 1926 she was employed by the National Gallery of Victoria as an art guide and lecturer — the first woman to hold this position. In 1926, Florence Gillies, an American tourist, visited Melbourne and invited Allen to be her guide through European galleries, mostly in Paris. Following this, in 1927, Allen lectured at New York City venues including the Metropolitan Museum, Columbia University and other institutions. She ran a series of lectures at the Readers Roundtable of the People's Institute, held at the New York Public Library, where newly created adult classes were taking place and were sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation. From that time, Allen generally lived and worked in New York. According to Marion Scott "[Allen] was able to increase one's ability to comprehend visually what had previously been puzzling... She did this by using words with great economy, words which were so lucid that they created no barrier between one's eyes and the work of Art." Modernism: 1930s Following her work and travels in Europe and America, Allen converted to modernism. She wrote two books, The Mirror of the Passing World (1928) and Painters of the Modern Mind (1929) based on her lectures and in the latter book, stated "that art should convey ideas, rather than mimic visual reality". In 1930 Allen organised the first exhibition of Australian artists in New York, "First Contemporary All-Australian Art Exhibition", at the Nicholas Roerich Museum, opening in February 1931. Besides her own work, featured artists included Norman Lindsay, Thea Proctor, George Bell and Dora Toovey: and one hundred paintings were shown. The cover of the exhibition catalogue had the Commonwealth coat of arms and a notice of patronage by Prime Minister James Scullin. Herbert Brookes, husband of Allen's friend Ivy, had been the Commissioner General for Australia in the United States from 1929–1930 and