Allen Tupper True was an American illustrator, easel painter and muralist who specialized in depicting the American West.

Allen Tupper True was born May 30, 1881, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the son of Margaret Allen Tupper and Henry Alfonso True, both of New England parentage. His maternal grandmother was beekeeper Ellen Smith Tupper; his aunts included two Unitarian ministers, Eliza Tupper Wilkes and Mila Tupper Maynard, and an educator, Kate Tupper Galpin.

His father, Henry True, was a pioneer who had fought against the secession of Texas with Sam Houston, driven cattle on the trail from Abilene to Montana, and had established a mercantile and freight business in Colorado Springs catering to the headlong mining rush pushing west into the mountains. His mother, Margaret True, was to become a noted educator, serving first as a teacher in Colorado Springs and later as President of the Denver School Board and head of the truancy department. She also founded the first kindergarten in El Paso, TX, and was instrumental in establishing in Denver what may have been the first juvenile court in the US.

True spent his childhood in Texas and Mexico before the family settled in Denver, Colorado. He graduated from Manual Training High School in Denver and spent two years at University of Denver before studying at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC. True then spent 1902-1907 at the prestigious Howard Pyle School in Wilmington, DE and Chadds Ford, PA. The Pyle School primarily readied students to become illustrators and whose alumni include Harvey Dunn, Philip R. Goodwin, Gayle Hoskins, Thornton Oakley, Frank E. Schoonover, and N. C. Wyeth. In the Fall of 1908, True went to London to study art and within a short time was asked by the eminent muralist Frank Brangwyn to work as his assistant on murals for Skinners Hall in London. In 1915, True married Emma Goodman Eaton in Colorado Springs.They had four children: Frank in 1916, Jere in 1919, Edith in 1926 and Allen, Jr.in 1928.

Allen Tupper True died November 1, 1955, and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs.

He was a member of the distinguished National Society of Mural Painters, whose members included John Singer Sargent and Edwin Abbey, and he was also a Fellow of England's Royal Society of the Arts.