Collection: Alan Caswell Collier

RCA, OSA (1911-1990)

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Collier attended the Ontario College Art, studying under J.E.H. MacDonald, J.W. Beatty, Frederick Haines, F.S. Challener, Yvonne McKague Housser and Franklin Carmichael (1929-1933). Travelling across Canada by rail on the CPR he worked in mines to finance further studies. In 1937 he moved to New York to attend the Art Students’ League where he studied with Howard Trafton. He became an advertising artist in New York in 1939 but returned to Canada in 1943 as a member of the army. After the war he resumed his career as an advertising artist but returned, in 1951, to the same mines he had worked at in the 1930’s to paint from the miner’s point of view. Painting landscapes, cityscapes, industrial subjects and murals in oil, watercolour, pyroxylin, and acrylic polymer emulsion. Collier taught at the Ontario College of Art (1955-1967) and exhibited at the RCA between 1948-1970 and the MMFA between 1954-1960. His works are represented in the HAG, Art Gallery of Ontario and National Gallery of Canada.