Biographies

Charles F. Collins (1840 – 1921) He was a painter of rural scenes, mostly, and lived in Surrey. He exhibited in London, mainly with the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Academy from 1867 on. He is not to be confused with the eighteenth-century painter of the same name, who was the brother of Wilkie Collins. This Charles Collins had a son, George Edward Collins (1880-1968), who became a well-known painter himself. Anthony Ludovici (spelling his name “Collin”) had some interesting things to say about a work of his in for August 14, 1913: The New Age By far the most interesting work on the first floor is C. F. Collin’s “Flora” (No 4). The whole composition is excellent and cheerful in the extreme. Clean and powerful drawing characterises every detail of the work, the figures are vigorous and full of life, and the man stooping at the stride to pluck flowers gives a spon spontaneous enthusiastic swing to the picture which is as rare as it is welcome. I saw from the original design that this stooping plucker of flowers was an afterthought. It is a pity, in my opinion, that this first study was ever exhibited. We know that the effect of spontaneity itself is also art; we know that Beethoven’s work was a mass of laborious corrections ; but it is the result we, as spectators, are concerned with ; and when a painter like Collin has so far triumphed in concealing his , we, as spectators, believe in and enjoy the apparent spontaneity of his work just as deeply as he is conscious of the pains it has cost him. means (NA 13.16:463)