Joseph Allen

Joseph Allen was a Cheshire vicar who slipped watercolours into his sermon notes. His spare time went to drawing teenaged girls with a quiet intensity, faces half turned, collarbones just beginning to shadow the neck. He made Miss Mary Cunliffe, aged 15 years, look back over her shoulder as if she’d heard a footstep in the churchyard.

Hunt down the watercolour in Manchester Art Gallery; it’s the best place to see how a quiet pastor could make a sideways glance feel like a story half-told.