John Collier

John Maler Collier (1850-1934) was an English painter and writer, one of the most prominent portraitists of his generation. Trained at the Slade School, in Paris and in Munich, he also produced history paintings, usually imagined portraits of one or two figures from literature, myth or history. His name is now often linked to the Huxley family, since he married two daughters of Thomas Henry Huxley.

He came from a prosperous and cultivated family. His father, a judge and amateur artist, became the first Lord Monkswell, and his elder brother served as Under-Secretary of State for War. After Eton he studied at the Slade under Edward Poynter, then in Paris under Jean-Paul Laurens and in Munich. He was not Alma-Tadema's or Millais's pupil, but both encouraged and influenced him.

His first wife, the painter Marian Huxley, died in 1887 after severe postnatal depression. In 1889 he married her younger sister Ethel. English law did not allow such a marriage until the Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act of 1907, so the ceremony took place in Norway. Their daughter Joyce became a miniature painter.

Collier helped found the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, later serving as its vice-president, and exhibited many dozens of works at the Royal Academy. He painted scientists such as Darwin, writers such as Kipling, and political and military figures. His solemn portraits of older men were the most admired, while his portraits of women, children and younger men, and his scenes of everyday life, are often brighter. Later critics praised his colour, though his brushwork is barely visible.

He also wrote about painting technique, including a manual on oil painting and a book on portraiture. Today his works are spread across the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Tate and other public collections. His legacy is that of a successful and skilled portraitist, standing between Victorian tradition and the fresher painting of the early twentieth century.