Article content
Jytte Allen, a Vancouver gallerist known and loved on the local art scene for decades, has died. She was 82.
Allen, who was from Denmark, was born Feb. 20, 1938 and died July 17 of cancer.
She was described as a great storyteller who lived a rich cultural life in Europe before arriving in Vancouver.
Artist Dina Goldstein said she will “always treasure the stories of her early life as an actress in Europe” where she knew Ingrid Bergman.
“She had a love affair with Marcel Marceau and befriended Francis Bacon,” Goldstein said in an email.
“Later in her art world life after immigrating to Vancouver . . . she was a gallery owner who brought European sophistication to the local art scene. She was elegant, beautiful, funny and . . . more.”
Allen was a precocious teenager with a feel for the arts, according to an online biography.
At 15, she was “contributing to and editing a youth insert for a major Copenhagen newspaper featuring children’s views on art, politics, immigration, literature and education.”
