equal attention to positive and negative space — "the air should be as positive as a cube of ice" — and encouraged a cubist approach, as it "is the only way in which to grasp the essential forms of nature." When analysing the function of the grotesque in modern art, Allen wrote in 1930, "All that is strange and incredible and non-existent is its subject matter. It takes what is not and what might be and creates with them and opposes this new imaginative world to the positive world of naturalism and science." Provincetown Art Colony: 1950s From 1949 Allen lived and worked in Provincetown at its art colony. Her cubist style painting, "Sea, studio: Winter" was painted in that year at the colony. It was shown at Georges Gallery in Melbourne in following year. In June 1950 Allen travelled to Alice Springs to "capture something of the strange character and beauty of central Australia for an exhibition when she returns next month to New York." From this trip she wrote "Notes on Central Australia" for Meanjin, the Australian literary magazine, in Spring 1950. Her final visit to Australia was from November 1959 to April 1960, to lecture and exhibit. The Ages art critic wrote, "[Allen]'s capabilities are most apparent when she is occupied with the rearrangement of planes and forms, and their disposition as a pictorial unity... This ability is illustrated by the near-abstract compositions [including] 'Sea, studio...' [in which] the suggestion of space in design is admirable". Death and legacy Mary Cecil Allen died on 7 April 1962, she was found dead in her chair by neighbours, due to "sinus arrest, cause unknown" (see sinoatrial arrest). She was buried at the Provincetown Cemetery, according to Anglican rites. Eight of Allen's paintings are held by the National Gallery of Victoria. Her papers are held at the Archives of American Art. Sacrifice, a wax crayon work, was sold at Christie's (London), in November 1991, for USD1,096. Her landscape, Sorento Hotel, was sold at auction in May 2001, in Melbourne, for US$7,274. In 1963 the Art Teachers Association of Victoria established the Mary Cecil Allen Memorial Lecture delivered annually, where an international speaker alternated with an Australian speaker over successive years. In July 1966 L. M. Haynes, professor of industrial arts at the University of Sydney delivered "Creativity in Art and Science" for that year's lecture. Publications Selected paintings In Fancy