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Ad Code: 4
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An example of work by Ann Collins
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  The following, submitted June 2006, is from Larry Ann Evans, daughter of the artist.
Ann Collins was born in Lyons, New York on April 29, 1916 and during
her career, which spanned from the 1930’s through the 1980’s, became
one of her generation’s most skillful artists of Thoroughbred
racehorses, commissioned by the foremost owners, breeders and trainers
of the racing world.
Ann Collin's love of horses began when she was very young. When
she was nine months old, her father, Cornelius Collins, moved his
family west to Colorado. Ann showed a passion for drawing and
painting from the time she was able to hold a pencil, one of the first
being of her own pony, when she was just four years old. With no
one but her mother and father to guide her, she developed her
talent at their ranch house on the Sangre de Cristo Range - first with
pencil and crayons, later with watercolor and oil.
Her subjects were always the horses, cowboys and Indians that she saw
working for her father on the Trinchera Grant in Colorado, where her
father was overseer of timbering operations. All of the artist’s
westerns, painted one-a-year throughout her career, had the tell-tail
signs of her life in Colorado: the canons, wild horses, Indians and
covered wagons. Her feel for horses wasn’t learned from afar; at
eight, she was breaking ponies with the cowhands and at ten riding
horseback from one point to the other of the Trinchera Land Grant, a
space the size of the state of Rhode Island (now the 150,000 acre
Forbes Trinchera Ranch).
When she was sixteen her father moved the family again to return to
their home town of Lyons, NY. After graduating from high school
in Lyons, the young artist enrolled, at her father’s urging in Syracuse
University’s highly regarded School of Fine Arts, where she completed
numerous student pen and inks, charcoal sketches, watercolors and oils
that have been kept to this day in the family home. Soon after
graduation, she put her talent and her love of horses together to begin
her career at Saratoga, where her father had just recently taken over
the casino at Piping Rock Club. In the summer of 1935 Saratoga
was the mecca of the world’s wealthiest horse racers and it is there,
painting on the grounds of the Piping Rock Club that she was
discovered.
Ann Collins sold her first painting to Col. E.R. Bradley, the first man
to own four Kentucky Derby winners, who after seeing one of the
artist’s westerns, Covered Wagon, bought it and started her on
her path to international fame. Soon after, at twenty-eight, Ann
Collins was commissioned to paint the most famous race of her time, a
race between only two horses: Alsab and Whirlaway.
Narragansett Park commissioned her to paint the finish line where Alsab
beat Whirlaway.
As word spread, Miss Collins was commissioned to paint more than
seventy-five of the leading racehorses of our time including Citation
for the then President of Tropical Park, Nat Herzfeld; Chrysler II and
By Jimminy for Walter P. Chrysler, Dom Bingo for Bing Crosby; Tom Fool
for Jock Whitney; and Discovery and Bed of Roses for Alfred Gwynne
Vanderbilt.
Ann was also the only American artist ever sent to England to paint the
winner of the Washington D.C International race. John Schapiro,
the former owner of Laurel Race Course, founded the turf race in 1952
to bring together the world's best horses. England's Wilwyn won the
inaugural event, and Shapiro sent Ann to his stables in Kent,
England to have the horse “sit” for her.
Ann was sometimes commissioned to paint some of the people closely
involved with the horse alongside the horse in the canvas, such as
jockeys Johnny Londgen, Eddie Arcaro, Eric Guerin, and Shelby
Clark. Douglas Dodson was painted with Bed O’Roses, and Teddy
Atkinson on Baron Jack; and owners Bing Crosby with Don Bingo, Charles
Turner with Bon Jour, Mrs. Payne Whitney at the head of Swing and Sway,
and Mrs. Nicholas Martini holding Master Fiddle.
Not only did Ann paint thoroughbreds, she also painted dogs. In
1952 Ann exhibited some of those paintings at the 76th Westminister
Kennel Club show in Madison Square Garden. One was of Wags, a
Dachshund commissioned by Danny Arnstein, the New York City taxicab
magnate of Wags Transportation Systems, and the other was of
Tony, a brindle boxer owned by Dan Parker, former columnist for the New York Daily Mirror.
Ann Collins' career spanned six decades until her death in 1999.
She is remembered by many and written up in numerous books, magazines
and newspaper articles. Her painting of Rouge Dragon is part of
the permanent collection of The National Museum of Racing in Saratoga
Springs, N.Y. Dan Parker, described her as “The modern Rosa
Bonheur… She makes horses live on canvas. A tall and willowy blond, her
face and figure suggest that she might be an artist’s model rather than
the artist herself. Her love of horses is as great as her love of
life.”
PERIODICAL REFERENCES
Magazine: The National Horseman
Date: November 1942
Article: Sells Painting of Alsab
Magazine: Beauty Fashion
Date: November 1944
Inside Article: “Make-up Palette”
Magazine: Independent Woman
Date: February 1945
Inside Article: “Marketwise” Artist
Magazine: Turf and Sport Digest
Date: December 1946
Inside Article: Backstretch Soliloquy
Magazine: The Thoroughbred Record
Date: October 18, 1947
Inside Article: Part of “Memos”
Magazine: The Thoroughbred of California
Date: May 1948
Inside Article: The Horse in Contemporary American Art
Magazine: The Chronicle: A Sporting Journal
Date: Friday, May 7, 1948
Inside Article & Cover artwork of “Rouge Dragon”
Magazine: The Chronicle: A Sporting Journal
Date: Friday, June 11, 1948
Inside Article & Cover artwork of “Navigate with his Bantam Rooster”
Magazine: The Chronicle: A Sporting Journal
Date: Friday, July 16, 1948
Inside Article & Cover artwork “North Wales’ By Jimminy”
Magazine: Horsemen’s Journal
Date: August 1958
Cover artwork “Lord Putnam”
Magazine: The Chronicle: A Sporting Journal
Date: Friday, April 15, 1949
Inside Article & Cover artwork “Mr. Gambrill’s Coach and Four”
Magazine: The New Jersey Thoroughbred
Date: February 1951
Inside Article
Magazine: The Thoroughbred Record
Date: August 23, 1952
Inside Article: “The Saratoga Story”
Magazine: The Chronicle: A Sporting Journal
Date: August 21, 1953
Inside Article & Cover artwork “Equanimous”
Magazine: Turf And Sport Digest
Date: November 1953
Cover artwork of "Wilwyn" and inside cover article
Magazine: The New Jersey Thoroughbred - Stallion Edition
Date: December 1955 (Vol. 9 No. 1)
Inside article
Magazine: Turf and Sport Digest
Date: August 1955
Cover artwork “The Heir” and inside cover article
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PAINTINGS OF RACE HORSES
DATE HORSE
COMMISSIONED BY now owned by
1942 ALSAB Albert Sabath
ALSAB & WHIRLAWAY Naragansett Park
(Finish line of Championship Match Race Sept. 19, 1942)
1943 LILLETH Daniel Sangper
1944 SOLE PIRATE Fitz Eugene Dixon Jr.
CRAFTY ADMIRAL Charles Cohen
VOLITANT George Bull
RIVERLAND Harold Clark
1945 BARON JACK “Baron” Jack Kriendler - former owner
of Club 21, NY
DON BINGO Bing Crosby
BOBANET Dorothy Clark & Bruce
Livie
MARKETWISE George Carroll
ROUGE DRAGON William G. Jones
1946 DISCOVERY Alfred Gwynne Vanderbuilt
BON JOUR Charles Turner
MERCATOR William G. Jones
BUZFUZ Dan
Chappel
FIRST FLIGHT Cornelius Vanderbilt
Whitney
EQUANIMOUS Ashlyn Cannon
NAVIGATE Regan McKinney
1947 POLYNESIAN P.A.B. Widener
MARKET WISE George W. Carroll
REQUESTED B.F. Whitaker
BY
JIMMINY Walter P. Chrysler
1948 CHRYSLER II Walter P. Chrysler
DRUM
BEAT Robert S. Howard
SHEILA’S REWARD Louis Lazare
MISS
DISCO Sidney
Schupper Simmy Sussman
1949 ATTENTION Damon Runyon, Memorial Cancer Fund
BED
o’ROSES Alfred Gwynne Vanderbuilt
NELL
K James D.
Norris
ROYAL GOVERNOR Mrs. Esther Dupont Weir
ARISE Jack
Addison
1950 SWEET DREAM Joseph Rabinovich
HELLION George Haas
MAN o’ WAR Samuel Riddle
MOUNT MARCY S.E. Veitch
1951 MICHE Mrs. John Payson Adams
NAVIGATOR Regan McKinney
JAM James F.
McHugh
SWING AND SWAY Mrs. Payne Whitney
TALLYHO Daniel Ernstein
1952 ROYAL BAY GEM Eugene Constantine Jr.
ANXIOUS MOMENT Jack Hogan
BIG
DIAL Ernest Hart (trainer)
MASTER FIDDLE Mrs. Nicholas Martini
CITATION N.E. Hertzfeld -
President of Tropical Park
1953 WILWYN John Shapiro
HELIOSCOPE William Helis
TOM FOOL Jock Whitney
1954 THREE RINGS E. L. Hopkins
POCAHONTES Raymond Guest
1955 A STEEPLECHASE Ashlyn Cannon
BUNNY’S BABE Col. E.P. Bixer
1956 AUCTION James F. McHugh
1957 JABNEH Louisa DuPont Carpenter
1958 TROILES Bayard Sharp
CRAFTY ADMIRAL Charles Cohen
CITATION Lucille P. (Wright) Markey
AMBROSIA Anthony Imbesi
1959 VULCAN’S FORGE I.J. Collins
MR. JIVE A. Appelbaum
BELLE SOEUR Louisa duPont
Carpenter Greta
Siemen
(Grandaughter of Louisa)
GREEK STAR Sidney M. Barton
1963 GET AROUND Elizabeth Arden
CHIEFTAIN Raymond Guest
CASTLE FORBES Mrs. Henry Carnegie
Phipps
1965 YANKEE BLAZE Laramie G. Evans
1966 QUADRANGLE Paul Mellon
1968 KAUAI KING Mike Ford
1978 MAC DIARMIDA Dr. Jerome M. Torsney
1980 HORATIUS Dr. Philip J. Torsney
1984 ISLAND WHIRL F. William Harder (Elcee-H Stable)
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