CLARK McDOUGALL’S TWO SOLITUDES
CLARK McDOUGALL’S TWO SOLITUDES
April 4 - 25, 2020 Curated by Jennie Kraehling, Associate Director
“Clark McDougall’s Two Solitudes” Gallery Installation View Michael Gibson Gallery, April 2020
T
he Michael Gibson Gallery has represented the Estate of Clark McDougall since 2009 and have enjoyed 6 diverse exhibitions ranging from his Fauve series of paintings, to his street-scenes and road landscapes, through to his pure black and white representations of the landscape. Our April 2020 exhibition combines available paintings from the estate along with artworks borrowed from both private and public collections. Specifically, we have included paintings that represent two subjects that Clark returned to often: the rural landscapes of North Yarmouth Township and the energetic city streets for which he was familiar. Through these paintings we show a development in his remarkable style and how he studied a subject in depth, traveling at a slower pace and creating a visual memorial to his way of life. Clark McDougall’s work remains highly compelling and we continue to discover new aspects of his practice and life spent in the small southwestern Ontario town of St. Thomas. His life has a magical aura about it and his story remains unique. We are strongly committed to promoting Clark McDougall’s artwork and feel that Clark’s story has more relevance now, as he intensely studied his local environment and celebrated the simple, quiet pleasures of life through his remarkable paintings. Thank you to all of the private collectors, McIntosh Gallery and Museum London for their generous loans to this exhibition. Jennie Kraehling Associate Director
CLARK McDOUGALL’s NORTH YARMOUTH TOWNSHIP
(Photo: Peter Lemon)
B
orn in 1921 in St. Thomas, Ontario, Clark McDougall quit high school at the age of 16 to devote himself to becoming an artist. Predominately self taught, McDougall sought the advice of local artists William St. Smith and Ross Osgoode and learned how to paint with watercolour by studying books borrowed from the St. Thomas Public Library. During his developing years, he contacted American artist Charles Burchfield in Buffalo and brought paintings to American critic Clement Greenberg for advice. They all said the same thing: go home and paint - you have your own style and will benefit little from formal education. McDougall heeded their advice and started to paint, wandering through the farms and landscapes of North Yarmouth Township, sketching, taking photographs and making copious notes, always stressing specific details in the changing weather, textures and shifting light.
North Yarmouth Summer Barnyard with Chickens (LL11) Watercolour, 16 x 20 in. Estate of Clark McDougall - Pricing & Availability
1950
became a turning point in the development of McDougall’s style. At the age of 29, McDougall and his then wife Muriel (who remained married for only a few years), traveled to Montreal and Quebec City and saw for the first time the paintings of Henri Matisse, John Lyman and J. W. Morrice. The expressive way that each artist used colour and outline was revelatory for McDougall: “I have been introduced to a French type of thinking and I had to assimilate it. It was the greatest logic of the Twentieth Century”... “I knew that from then on, painting would never be the same for me again and I could hardly wait to come home and start in to a series of paintings, applying my new colour knowledge”. McDougall began painting with brightly charged “Fauve” non-naturalistic colours, creating outlines and enclosing colourful forms within the outlines. This new technique changed the way that McDougall organized his paintings and laid down colour. It represented the development towards his distinct “Black Enamel” outlined style that he is so well known for today. The outline quickly shifted from a bold colour to a mixed black made of ultramarine blue and alizarin crimson oil paint. The two paintings, “Late Autumn, St. Thomas” (1957) and “Night Scene” (1958), are excellent examples of how McDougall would use a bold outline to define the shapes within the painting.
Late Autumn, St. Thomas Oil on Masonite, 1957, 24 x 32 in. Collection Estate of Richard M. Ivey
McDougall said: “In each painting I am not at all interested in representational processes, but rather of exciting my nervous system again. I place red near orange or green etc. and the idea is to keep the painting itself following certain necessary laws that I have to develop through the natural process that I have of my knowledge of colour�.
Bridge Over Stream (C16) Oil on Masonite, 24 x 32 in., Estate of Clark McDougall - Pricing & Availability
T
he thick black outline painted with oil paint took days to dry and would sometimes bleed. McDougall, therefore, shifted to using a black enamel car paint that dried quickly and gave him more control. Beginning in 1961, McDougall switched to black enamel paint more frequently, creating electrified canvases that hummed with rhythm and design. “Dan Patterson’s Porch” (1976) shows the direct effect that the black enamel paint had on his work. With fine detail and careful planning, McDougall invented a new way of approaching his paintings. He described the black enamel style as being more cerebral and exciting, a technique that would “drag him back”, but also, become dictatorial. He, therefore, continued with his “straight” paintings, as he called them, for the rest of his life. He fluctuated between the two styles finding that the subject would dictate the style, choosing the one that would “capture the mystery and poetry” in the best way.
Dan Patterson’s Porch Oil & Black Enamel on Masonite, 1976, 44 x 39 in. Collection McIntosh Gallery
O
ver time, and through the support of his community, McDougall became a well-known artist in the region. Since he did not drive and was no longer able to ride a bike due to a bad heart, friends and family would drive McDougall out into the country, dropping him off in the morning and picking him up at night. He became good friends with many local farmers, stashing his easels in many of their barns and traipsing through their fields looking for new discoveries. Because of his restrained mobility, he remained focused on a very specific region. This intense study of his local environment created a feeling of familiarity balanced with an evocative, emotional sensibility seen through his careful compositions, sense of atmosphere and incredible use of colour.
Barn in Summer (S11) Watercolour, 20 x 24 in. Estate of Clark McDougall Pricing & Availability
Road Scene Oil on Masonite, 1964, 36 x 48 ijn. Collection Patrick and Lorin Kinsella
He wrote: “I have all the answers here”… “This time of year, I fall completely in love with the landscape north of here 2 or 3 miles out. I get absolutely homesick for some spots and have to go out for an afternoon. It is like a secret rendezvous with a mysterious lover”.
The North Yarmouth Township landscape became his muse for his entire career: “Usually when I discover a new farm for subject matter I want to milk it dry, so to speak, and a new farm for subject matter is most often a very old farm, loaded with character”.
“I wondered to myself how a landscape can be so changeable... I could look at this landscape on some days when it would be just ‘blah’... But then there are days when a landscape will be superb”.
Untitled Winter Landscape with Side of Barn Oil on Masonite, 1966, 31 1/2 x 24 1/2 in. Collection Museum London
The two paintings “East Side Road Barn” (1973) and “Untitled Winter Landscape with Side of Barn” (1966) feel like different aspects of the same place. He represents the farms, devoid of any human activity, but reveals the beauty through the hard work spent tending the fields and erecting the buildings.
East Side Road Barn Oil on Masonite, 1973, 36 x 48 in. Private Collection
D
irect landscapes also represent his intimate knowledge and careful observation. “Barns in a Landscape” (1960) has a considered composition through the contrasting horizontal and vertical lines. There is boldness with the outlines, a lushness in the variety of greens and blues and a compacted energy to the summer field. Similarly “Kettle Creek Valley” (1979), though purely black and white, is an ordered and carefully composed painting. It seems that McDougall invents a magical place filled with a variety of textures, natural rhythms and compositional tricks that lead us through the valley below. “For me, everything must remain off-centre in order to keep it moving. Otherwise, there’s no tension and it’s boring”.
Barns in a Landscape Oil on Masonite, 1960, 22 x 40 in., Collection Museum London
Kettle Creek Valley (Z9) Black Enamel on Masonite, 1979, 24 x 32 in. Estate of Clark McDougall - Pricing & Availability
His enthusiasm for inventing a new way of representing the landscape is certainly evident with these two paintings.
CLARK McDOUGALL’S CITY LIFE
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here is a direct contrast between the solitude of the landscape and the pace of the city and street life in Clark’s street paintings. It is curious, however, that his street scenes are often empty and devoid of crowds of people. Instead, the energy comes from the dynamic patterns he creates with the angles of the streets, the signs and the reflective surfaces. The earliest street scene included in the exhibition is “Eddie’s Place” (1952) which depicts a winter street in Drayton, Ontario. McDougall uses the upright storefronts and crisscrossing hydro wires to take us on a nostalgic journey down the street. He conveys the mood of the day through colour so much so, that we can feel the crisp winter air.
Eddie’s Place Oil on Masonite, 1952, 29 x 24 in. Private Collection
I would argue that “Night Scene” (1958) is McDougall’s homage to Van Gogh’s “Café Terrace at Night”. Like Van Gogh, McDougall painted his immediate surroundings and animated them with vibrancy through colour. Here, McDougall uses a strong black outline and contrasting reds and greens, blues and oranges to capture the electric energy of the night. The painting is composed like a stage, complete with a curtain of colour and streetlights to light the scene.
Night Scene Oil on Masonite, 1958, 24 x 32 in. Private Collection
“Returning from Mass” (1969) is the only street scene in the exhibition with figures. Heads bowed, we see two women walking, seemingly silently, home from church down the main street of St. Thomas. The stillness of the figures is contradicted by McDougall’s magical composition. Everything on the street positively hums. From the heavy clouds to the patterned pavement and dizzying reflections, McDougall communicates an enormous amount of information to the delight of our eyes. He outlines key aspects of his composition in black and yellow, an effect he first noticed when looking at his slides. “I am not happy with straightforward, emotion-distilled work. I need to be creating an invention in which I have to improvise partially some of my changes and sections as I go along”.
This “invention” of outlining twice shows the effect of technology on his work and on his visual perception of the world around him.
Returning From Mass Oil & Black Enamel on Masonite, 1969, 36 x 48 in. Private Collection
Perhaps his most impressive black enamel street scenes are “John Street is a One Way Street” (1976) and “Pin Ball Palace” (1978). Unfortunately, we were unable to borrow these two paintings for the exhibition, but their inclusion here completes McDougall’s city life story for us. Like the other street scenes, McDougall uses the outline to establish the format of the composition, the mood and the atmosphere. These paintings, however, have a distinct grid and are tightly rendered with intense detail. The design has taken over. He believed that “Pin Ball Palace” represented a new language, one where he combined his “straight” style with the black enamel. “The last black enamel I painted was “Pin Ball Palace”… in 1978. When I did that painting I felt within myself that the graphic black outline had thinned out enough, that I could have made a representational painting minus the outline… My doing this was a sort of grammar for the final completion of the language.”
Left: Pinball Palace Oil & Black Enamel on Masonite, 1978, 44 x 39 in. Private Collection
Right: John Street is a One Way Street Oil & Black Enamel on Masonite, 1976, 36 x 48 in. Private Collection
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lark McDougall was a unique character who did not fit into one particular movement, region or style. In his very early career he exhibited with commercial galleries, but from 1952 on, chose to sell his paintings out of the home that he shared with his mother. A true homebody, McDougall lived at 56 Inkerman Street his entire life except for the period between 1939-1945 when he was working for the war effort in Toronto and during his short-lived marriage to Muriel. Known to live off of peanut butter and tea, McDougall was a local character, a known jokester with a quick wit and generous sense of humour. You can see the humour, expressiveness and generosity in his paintings – they “twinkle”, just like Clark. Perhaps it was his unventilated studio in the basement behind the furnace, or perhaps it was his weak heart, but on December 17, 1980, Clark McDougall passed away of a brain tumour, a month after his 59th birthday. His 100-year-old mother outlived her talented son. In June 1980 McDougall wrote: “Why am I here? I am here to paint. But Why? I do not really know. I only follow some deep felt motivation that appears to come from a higher place. Then why death, when I want to paint forever? Why do I have to follow the limitations of my physical body when I am positive that my knowledge of painting and life keeps increasing? Therefore there has to be a meaning to the creative process, which causes it to tie in with the overall process of life. Everything must die but in order to die it must fight to remain alive. The more we fight to stay alive, the more powerful can be our influence on whatever we do.”
Clark McDougall at St. Thomas Public Art Gallery, 1972
We, therefore, have to thank Clark McDougall for fighting through his short life to share with us his vision of the world, and for making the familiar and immediate just a little more beautiful.
Clark McDougall Chronology
1937 Left School. Supported himself by selling paintings.
1921 Born November 21 at 56 Inkerman Street, St. Thomas where he lived all his life except for the period from 1939-1945.
Read about American painter Charles Burchfield in one of the first Life Magazines.
Went to Balaclava Street Public School and St. Thomas Collegiate Institute. 1932 Met St. Thomas painters William St. Thomas Smith & Ross Osgoode. From then on had them as friends and critics. 1933 Began to paint from nature. attempts in watercolour.
First
Taught himself technique from books borrowed from the St. Thomas Public Library: “The History of British Watercolour Painting” by Cundall & “Technique of Landscape Painting in Oils” by Sir Alfred East.
Travelled to Buffalo to meet him and have him criticize his work. Also visited the Albright-Knox School for the same purpose. In both cases he was advised that he would probably benefit very little from formal instruction. His watercolour heroes were John Sell Cotman, Richard Parkes Bonington & Winslow Homer. 1939 Tried to join the Air Force. Transferred to war work because of leaky heart valve. 1940 Worked for Fleet aircraft in Fort Erie, did layout work for sheet metal and then Sutton Horsley Instrument Co. in Toronto. Returned to St. Thomas practically every weekend for 5 years. 1943 First exhibition at Robert Mellors Fine Art Gallery in Toronto. Met Manly MacDonald, A.R.C.A., O.S.A. 1944 Attended Ontario College of Art, Toronto for one week where they told him the same thing as Charles Burchfield. Exhibited with E. Luscombe Carroll, Toronto & Alma College, St. Thomas.
House on Inkerman Street (CC15)
Oil on Masonite, 1954, 20 x 24 in. Estate of Clark McDougall - Pricing & Availability
Don McDougall, Clark’s brother, took some of Clark’s paintings to New York.
1949 Exhibition at St. Thomas Public Library.
1945 Exhibited watercolour landscapes at Lenora Morton Gallery, New York City (May 21-June 9) – review in Art News v 44 June 1945, p37 & Art Digest v19, June 1945 p17, Carroll Fine Arts, Toronto (Nov 5-20), J.N. Adams Department Store, Buffalo (March 22-April 19), & Andersons Department Store, St. Thomas (Nov 2-16).
Exhibited in 9th Annual Western Ontario Exhibition, London Public Library and Art Museum, 2nd Annual Winter Exhibition, Art Gallery of Hamilton.
Taught at Arthur Voaden School. Gave classes in his own home, also in Strathroy. Married Muriel Enid Tidy in October. (Clark McDougall had a car for a short while after the war but got into an accident; after that he used a bicycle until his coronary, then hitched rides to locations with his brother Don and other friends). 1946 Commissioned by E.L. Cockshutt to paint the Cockshutt Memorial Shield for the Zion United Chruch in Brantford, in memory of those killed in WW II. Exhibited with the Buffalo Society of Artists at the Hotel Statten, Buffalo (April 20-28). 1946/7 Exhibited at Morton Gallery, New York – watercolour landscapes (Dec 16 - Jan 4). Review in Art Digest v21 Jan 15, 1947, p21.
Church at Port Burwell (D18)
Oil on Masonite, 16 x 20 in. Estate of Clark McDougall - Pricing & Availability
1950 Began painting in oils. Exhibited in 3rd Annual Winter Exhibition, Art Gallery of Hamilton. With his wife and Brock Dais he visited Montreal and Quebec City. Saw paintings by Henri Matisse, James Wilson Morrice & John Lyman which had a decisive impact on his painting, use of colour, and the way he looked at the landscape. Spent a lot of time painting in Erin, Ontario.
London Fair (A16)
Oil on Masonite, 1964, 24 x 32 in. Estate of Clark McDougall - Pricing & Availability
Attended a symposium at Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo to hear Clement Greenberg speak. Showed Greenberg some of his Port Stanley paintings which Greenberg liked and was encouraging. Painted a painting there of East Broadway which was eventually printed as a serigraph by Editions Canada. Taught evening classes to the West Elgin Art Club at West Elgin District High School. 1952 Exhibition at David Garfield Gallery, Toronto (Oct 25-Nov 7) which has his last exhibition in a commercial gallery.
1955 Commissioned by Monsignor Morrison to paint a set of the 14 Stations of the Cross for Holy Angels Church, St. Thomas.
Exhibited IODE Town House, St. Thomas (Nov 22-Dec 3).
1957 Suffered a heart attack and was confined indoors for three months.
Rented a room from farmer friend Al Joe Kalen at Elmira and painted throughout the summer at Glen Allan.
Paints “Fresh Fish at Port” and refers to it as the start of the black enamel style. “Release of the Thistledown” uses black oil outline. Uses casein for the first time.
1953 Exhibited at the 70th Annual Spring Exhibition, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Last time he was to exhibit until 1959). Jurors included John Lyman and Lilias Torrance Newton. 1954 Commissioned by the Elgin County Board of Education to do a series of murals for the entrance lobby of the Central Elgin Collegiate Institute, St. Thomas. Painting in what Clark called his “Fauve Period”. Painted again at Glen Allan, also in Port Stanley.
1959 Exhibition at the London Public Library and Art Museum (reviewed by Lenore Crawford in the LFP). 1960 Exhibition at Shute Institute, Grand Ave in London 1962 Black enamel first appears. Begins to alternate between semi-abstract and representational approaches as a regular way of working.
1965 Death of his wife in Toronto (March 24)
Included in “London Collects” London Public Library and Art Museum (Oct 6-30).
1967 Painted the Provincial Shields at the Federal Coat of Arms for Parkside Collegiate, St. Thomas.
1973 Canada Council Art Bank purchases 11 paintings.
1968 Exhibition at the 20/20 Gallery, London (Oct 15-Nov3) (Reviwed by Lenore Crawford in the LFP). 1969 Exhibition at Rodman Hall in St. Catherines, ON & Western Alumni Collection at McIntosh Gallery, UWO. “Talbot Street 1964” is purchased by Art Gallery St. Thomas-Elgin in April. Henry Luce III (Chairman of the board of “Time” Magazine) purchases “Yonge & Dundas 1” and “Interior, Port Burwell Anglican Church”. 1972 Retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery St. Thomas-Elgin.
1974 Solo exhibition of 14 black enamel paintings at the Art Gallery St. ThomasElgin. Included in Canadian Canvas, a travelling exhibition sponsored by Time Canada. Included in Selections from the Collection of the London Public Library and Art Museum & Art Gallery St. Thomas-Elgin (July 5-Aug 2). Included in exhibition at St. Thomas Public Library 1963-1974 (Sept 27-Oct 26). 1975/6 Included in “London Collects II” at the London Public Library and Art Museum (Dec) 1976 Two black enamel oils are included in “The Artist and the Olympic Idea” at the Art Gallery St. Thomas-Elgin (Aug 24-Sept 4). Commissioned by the Volunteer Committee of the London Regional Art Gallery to do the “Site” painting for the new building which was also created into an Editions Canada print.
Street Scene After the Rain
Oil on Masonite, 1961, 30 x 40 in. Private Collection
Included in The Ontario Community Collects exhibition at the AGO.
Exhibition at the Harris Gallery, London (Aug 26-Sept 12).
1977 Major exhibition of 47 works at the Vancouver Art Gallery called “Clark McDougall: Paintings since 1953” (April 2 – May 1).
Solo Exhibition at the Art Gallery St. ThomasElgin (Nov 1 -25).
Exhibited at the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery in a show called “50 works by Canadian Artists” (January). Included with “Site” print in Volunteer Committee Biennial Festival and Sale of Prints, London Public Library and Art Museum. Editions Canada publish a second print called “East Broadway Buffalo” (edition of 110). 1978 Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings 1939-1973 at the Michael Kompf Gallery, St. Thomas (Nov 1-25).
Painted last black enamel painting called “Pin Ball Palace” which was reproduced on the cover of UWO’s “The Business Quarterly”. Michael Kompf printed a photolithographic edition of four black and white and four colour serigraph prints made by Editions Canada. 1979 Included in Queen’s Silver Jubilee Travelling Exhibition with “Fowler’s Kitchen”. First showing of videotape “Outline in Black”, produced by John Stirling. 1980 Exhibition at McMaster University Medical Centre Art Gallery, Hamilton entitled “Outline in Black” (Feb 4 – Mar 4). Included in Art Bank Travelling Exhibition (Feb 22-Nov 8). Included in London and Area Artists Part 1 at the London Regional Art Gallery (Aug 22 – Sept 28). August 1980 Clark’s mother at the age of 100 went into the hospital (dies at age 102).
Fall Landscape Near Lake (B3)
Oil on Masonite, 1961, 24 x 32 in. Estate of Clark McDougall - Pricing & Availability
December 17, Clark McDougall, aged 59, dies of brain tumour. 1983 Exhibition at Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto (Aug 5-24). 1984 Exhibition “Clark McDougall: Barns 1952-1978” Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto (Sept 29-Oct 17) (catalogue). 1986 Exhibition “City Streets 1950-77” at Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto (March). 1987 Paddy O’Brien, director of London Regional Art Gallery curates a retrospective exhibition of Clark’s work called “John Street is a one-way Street: Clark McDougall Retrospective”. (catalogue) Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto Exhibition “Clark McDougall: Elgin County Landscapes” (Oct 3-21) & Art Gallery St. Thomas-Elgin, “Clark McDougall: Early Works” (Sept 11 – Oct 11). All three exhibitions were reviewed by Tom Smart in Canadian Art Magazine in the Spring 1988. 1988 Exhibition at Art Gallery Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax. 1995 Exhibition “Clark McDougall 19501975” at Thielsen Galleries, London (April). 1998 Exhibition “Clark McDougall – A Colour Primer” at Buschlen-Mowatt Gallery, Vancouver, BC. 2004 Exhibition “Clark McDougall’s Elgin”, St. Thomas - Elgin Public Art Centre.
2009 Michael Gibson Gallery, London, Ontario represents the Estate of Clark McDougall. First exhibition entitled “Post-Fauve Period 1952-1964” in June. Two person exhibition with Roly Fenwick “The Road Show” at Michael Gibson Gallery. 2010 Exhibition “Clark McDougall: A Life on the Land” organized by the Elgin County Museum, St. Thomas, ON. Second solo exhibition at the Michael Gibson Gallery “Clark’s View” in December. 2011 McIntosh Gallery, UWO curates a solo exhibition “Fugitive Light: Clark McDougall’s Destination Places”. March – May, 2011. (catalogue) 2012 Exhibition “Clark’s Urban Life” at Michael Gibson Gallery. 2014 Exhibition “Black & White” with Margot Ariss at Michael Gibson Gallery. 2016 “The Desire to Acquire: London Collects”, group exhibition at Museum London, London, ON. (catalogue) 2017 “Paintings from 1944-1954” exhibition at Michael Gibson Gallery. 2020 “Clark McDougall’s Two Solitudes” exhibition at Michael Gibson Gallery featuring artworks borrowed from the estate, private collectors and public galleries. (online catalogue)
Public & Corporate Collections Art Gallery of Ontario Bank of Canada Bank of Nova Scotia Blackburn Media Employees Association Canada Council Art Bank Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce City of St. Thomas Concept Properties Corporation of the City of Toronto Co-Operators Department of External Affairs, Ottawa Gulf Canada Corporation LAC Minerals Ltd Lerners LLP McIntosh Gallery McMillan Binch Merchant Private Trust Museum London Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt Royal Bank Scotia McLeod St. Thomas – Elgin Public Art Gallery The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa Vancouver Art Gallery
Clark McDougall, 1980 (Photo: Peter Lemon)
CLARK McDOUGALL’S TWO SOLITUDES
Online catalogue of an exhibition at Michael Gibson Gallery April 4 - 25, 2020 Thank you to the Estate of Clark McDougall, McIntosh Gallery, Museum London and the private collectors who generously loaned their paintings to this exhibition.
For Clark McDougall’s complete Curriculum Vitae and images of available paintings please visit www.gibsongallery.com
Clark McDougall quotes taken from the following exhibition catalogues: “Clark McDougall Paintings Since 1953”, Vancouver Art Gallery,1977 “John Street is a One Way Street”, LRAG, 1987 “Fugitive Light: Clark McDougall’s Destination Places”, McIntosh Gallery, 2011
Front Cover Image: detail of Returning from Mass, Oil & Black Enamel on Masonite, 1968 Back Cover Image: Michael Gibson Gallery “Clark McDougall’s Two Solitudes” Exhibition View
Design Michael Gibson Gallery Artwork Images © Estate of Clark McDougall
www.gibsongallery.com