John Maler Collier English painter Date of Birth: 27.01.1850 Country: Great Britain

Biography of John Collier

John Collier was an English painter and a member of the Royal Society of British Artists. He studied painting at the Munich Academy, where he enrolled on April 14, 1875, at the age of 25. Collier came from a successful and talented family. His grandfather, John Collier, was a prominent bourgeois, a Quaker, and a member of Parliament. His father, Sir Robert Perrie Collier, was a lawyer and a member of Parliament who served for many years as the Attorney General and a judge of the Privy Council. He was granted the title of the first Lord Monkswell. Collier's elder brother, the second Lord Monkswell, held the position of Under-Secretary of State at the War Office and Chairman of the London County Council.

Collier became a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and studied painting at the Munich Academy, where he enrolled on April 14, 1875, at the age of 25. He married both of Thomas Henry Huxley's daughters. Collier became an integral part of the Thomas Henry Huxley family, who was once the President of the Royal Society of London.

Collier's first wife, in 1879, was Marion Huxley, who was also an artist. After the birth of their only child, a daughter, she suffered from severe postnatal depression and was sent to Paris for treatment. However, she contracted pneumonia and died in 1887. In 1889, Collier married her younger sister, Ethel Huxley. Prior to 1907, such marriages were not possible in England, so the ceremony took place in Norway. Collier's daughter from his first marriage, Joyce, became a portrait miniaturist and a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters. He had a daughter and a son with his second wife, Sir Laurence Collier, who served as the British Ambassador to Norway from 1941 to 1951.

Collier's aristocratic background allowed him to establish himself among important artists of his time, such as Lawrence Alma-Tadema and John Everett Millais. He became a popular portraitist during the Victorian era and the reign of King Edward VII. The range of subjects in Collier's paintings was quite extensive. He portrayed many prominent figures of his time. In 1893, for example, his models included Bishop Shrewsbury (Sir Lovelace Stamer), Sir John Lubbock, and Sir Edward Augustus Inglefield (an admiral and Arctic explorer), among others.

Collier also created works on mythological themes. He is known for his dramatic, theatrical style of painting classical subjects. Collier became famous for using images of beautiful women from legends, myths, literature, and history as the main theme in his paintings. His painting "The Death of Albine" (1895) was inspired by the novel "La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret" (1875) by the writer Emile Zola.