Alan Caswell Collier RCA, OSA  (1911 – 1990)

Alan Caswell Collier was a painter, commercial artist, illustrator, muralist and educator.  He was born in Toronto and, with the exception of a residency in New York City from 1937 to 1942, lived there all of his life.  His primary medium was oil, however he has done some watercolors, acrylics and ink drawings.  His subjects are Canadian landscape, cityscape, mining, industry and portraiture.  His style is realist with a focus on composition, texture, volume and light.

He studied at the Ontario College of Art under J.E.H. MacDonald, J.W. Beatty, Frederick Haines, F.S. Challener, Yvonne McKague Housser and Franklin Carmichael, graduating in 1933.  He also attended the Art Student’s League of New York (1937) where he studied under Howard Allen Trafton (1897 -1964)*.  He taught advertising art at the Ontario College of Art from 1955 to 1967; after which he devoted himself to painting full-time.  He traveled extensively across Canada including to the high arctic.

He was a member of the Ontario Society of Artists (President, 1958-61) and the Royal Canadian Academy (ARCA 1956, RCA 1960).  He served in the Canadian Army from 1943 to 1946.

He exhibited with the Royal Canadian Academy between 1948 and 1970, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from 1954 to 1960.  He also exhibited at the First Biennial of Canadian art at the National Gallery of Canada in 1955 and at the Fourth Biennial in 1961.

His work is in many private, corporate and public collections.  Some of the public collections are the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Hamilton Art Gallery, the Art Museum of London (Ontario), the Ottawa Art Gallery and the Frye Museum (Seattle).  His murals can be seen at Ryerson Polytechnic (Toronto), the Bank of Canada (Toronto) and Queens Park (Toronto).

As a prominent Canadian artist his work is discussed in many books about Canadian art history, there are also numerous magazine and newspaper articles. He is listed in A Dictionary of Canadian Artists (1974), by Colin S. MacDonald, published by Canadian Paperbacks Ltd. (8 volumes); in The Collector's Dictionary of Canadian Artists at Auction (2001), by Anthony R. Westbridge and Diana L. Bodnar, published by Westbridge Publications Ltd. (4 volumes); in Jaques Cattell Press, Who's Who in American Art 15th Edition (1982), published by R.R. Bowker Co. (1204 pgs); and in Falk's Who Was Who in American Art (3 volumes).  His work is also illustrated and discussed in Art Gallery of Ontario – The Canadian Collection, published by McGraw-Hill Co. of Canada Ltd. (603 pgs, B&W); and in The History of Painting in Canada - Toward A peoples Art (1974) by Barry Lord, published by NC Press Toronto (253 pgs, color and B&W).

* Creator of Trafton Script.  He was a commercial art instructor who rather than teaching specific techniques, focused on the fundamentals of art; color, composition and arrangement; elements very evident in Collier's paintings.

 
Prepared and contributed by M.D. Silverbrooke