Thomas Collier RI (12 November 1840 – 14 May 1891) was an English landscape painter.

Biography

Collier was born in

Glossop Glossop is a market town in the Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, England. It is located east of Manchester, north-west of Sheffield and north of the county town, Matlock. Glossop lies near Derbyshire's borders with Cheshire, Greater Manches ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

, the son of Martha Siddall and Thomas Collier, who was a prosperous grocer and tea dealer. He received tuition at the

Manchester School of Art Manchester School of Art in Manchester, England, was established in 1838 as the Manchester School of Design. It is the second oldest art school in the United Kingdom after the Royal College of Art which was founded the year before. It is now par ...

and, inspired by David Cox's example, lived at

Betws-y-Coed Betws-y-coed (; '' en, prayer house in the wood'') is a village and community in the Conwy valley in Conwy County Borough, Wales, located in the historic county of Caernarfonshire, right on the boundary with Denbighshire, in the Gwydir Forest. ...

in northern Wales between 1864 and 1869. He moved to London in about 1870 on being elected to the New Water Colour Society. Collier was a close friend of Charles Stuart Millard, the Canadian-born painter (who moved to England before 1879 and was employed as an instructor at the South Kensington Art School, before taking up an appointment as Headmaster at the Cheltenham School of Art). Although not a prolific worker or exhibitor, he is regarded as one of the finest of English landscape watercolourists. He was made a

Chevalier of the Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

in recognition of a painting sent to the Paris International Exhibition of 1878. Collier was industrious, retiring and often in poor health, yet financially independent, able to work without pandering to popular taste and to travel at will into the Suffolk countryside. In 1879 he arranged for the construction of a large house and studio at 9 Hampstead Hill Gardens in

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...

where he spent his days painting and entertaining artist friends.Thomas Collier - Biography
(handprint.com). Collier died in

, London in 1891 and was buried in a family grave on the western side of

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

Gallery

File:Thomas Collier11.jpg, Study of an oak tree File:Thomas Collier12.jpg, Wide Pastures, Sussex File:9 Hampstead Hill Gardens, Belsize Park, June 2021 (2).jpg, 9 Hampstead Hill Gardens, Collier's Hampstead residence, in 2021 File:Family grave of Thomas Collier in Highgate Cemetery.jpg, Family grave of Thomas Collier in

Bibliography

*Bury, Adrian. ''The life and art of Thomas Collier, R. I., Chevalier of the legion of honour 1840-1891'', with a treatise on the English water-colour (London: F. Lewis, 1944).

References

External links

Cromer
(watercolour - Tate online) {{DEFAULTSORT:Collier, Thomas 1840 births 1891 deaths Burials at Highgate Cemetery 19th-century English painters English male painters English watercolourists Landscape artists People from Glossop 19th-century English male artists