COLLIER, Thomas

1840 - 1891

Thomas Collier was born at Glossop, Derbyshire on 12 November 1840, son of Thomas Collier (1 July 1797-1 July 1859, a prosperous grocer and tea dealer, and his wife Martha née Sydall (born 1801 and bapt 22 February 1802-1857), who married at Glossop on 24 November 1822. Young Thomas studied at the Manchester School of Art and, inspired by David Cox's (29 April 1783–7 June 1859) example, lived at Betws-y-Coed in North Wales 1864-1869, and then moved to London. He married his first wife at St Anne, Sale, Cheshire on 28 December 1865, Hermione Beatrice Holdstock (1839–1879) and after her death, secondly on 2 July 1881 her friend Jessie Ida Tawell (1856–4 August 1937). Collier first exhibited in London in 1863, and in 1870 elected an Associate of the New Society of Painters in Water Colours and a full member two years later and is regarded as one of the finest watercolour painters of the English landscape. In 1879, he managed the construction of a large house and studio in Hampstead, from where he spent his days painting and entertaining artist friends but still travelled the country on sketching tours, especially Wales and East Anglia. Collier was industrious, retiring and often in poor health, yet financially independent, and towards the end of his life, able to work without pandering to popular taste and to travel at will, into the Suffolk countryside working on the coast between Sizewell and Southwold painting mostly in watercolour. Thomas Collier died comparatively young and mostly unnoticed by the artist establishment, although in 1878 he had been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in recognition of a painting 'A View of Arundel Castle from the North' which he exhibited at the Paris International Exhibition and in 1890 had a successful exhibition at Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. Thomas Collier died at his home at Hampstead Hill Gardens, London on 14 May 1891.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from 37 Hagley Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham
1869 651 The Coming Tide - watercolour
from 1 Windsor Terrace, Old Trafford, Manchester
1870 611 Birker Moor, Cumberland - watercolour
         618 Summertime on the Cumberland Fells - watercolour
         629 Evening after Rain: Harted Fell, Cumberland - watercolour

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Works by This Artist