Hunt's Portrait of Charles Allston Collins in 1852. [Click on the images to enlarge them and for more information.]
Charles Allston Collins (1828-1873) was born in Hampstead, London, on 25 January 1828. He was the second son of the painter William Collins and his wife Harriet Geddes. His older brother was the novelist William "Wilkie" Collins. At the age of eight Charles had his initial exposure to Italian Renaissance art during the two years of his father's "grand tour." He was educated initially at home by his mother and then later at Stonyhurst College, an independent Roman Catholic Jesuit school near the village of Hurst Green in Lancashire. He showed an early predilection for art and was prepared for the Royal Academy Schools by studying with his family's friend and neighbour John Linnell. Collins was accepted into the Royal Academy Schools in 1843 and was a contemporary of some members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, including John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt, who became his close friends.
Collins first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1847 when he showed two portraits. In 1850 he painted his first painting under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites, Berengaria's Alarm for the Safety of her Husband, Richard Coeur de Lion. After the resignation of James Collinson from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in May 1850, Millais proposed Collins as his replacement, supported by Holman Hunt, F. G. Stephens, and D. G. Rossetti. Thomas Woolner and W. M. Rossetti opposed this plan, however, on the ground that Collins had not yet established sufficient claim through his work for membership, and the suggestion for membership was ultimately rejected in 1851.
Collins's Convent Thoughts of 1851.
In 1850 Collins fell in love with Maria Rossetti, the Rossetti brothers' pious sister, but she did not return his feelings and in the autumn of that year she declined his proposal of marriage. Collins's best-known Pre-Raphaelite painting Convent Thoughts was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1851, but it was severely criticized in the press. He continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy until 1855 and in 1857 his work was included in the First Pre-Raphaelite Group exhibition held at 4 Russell Place, Fitzroy Square. He sent one painting The Long Engagement to the Exhibition of Modern British Art in America that toured from 1857-58.
Ultimately the critical reception of his work, combined with his chronic lack of self-confidence, led him to abandon painting in 1858 and devote himself to literature. He wrote three novels, two travel books, and several essays. He contributed to Charles Dickens's Household Words and to other magazines such as Dickens's All the Year Round. His most successful publications were The Eye-Witness of 1860 and A Cruise Upon Wheels of 1862. He was a great friend with his neighbour William Makepeace Thackeray.
Cover for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 1870.
On July 17, 1860 Collins married Dickens's youngest daughter Kate, who was herself an accomplished amateur watercolourist. Holman Hunt was his best man at the wedding. The marriage proved not to be a success, however, although Collins continued to be a regular visitor to Dickens's home at Gad's Hill Place near Rochester in Kent. In 1870 Collins designed the cover to the monthly parts of Dickens' unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
For the final ten years of his life Collins suffered from emotional problems and died after a lengthy illness from stomach cancer on 9 April 1873. He was buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.
Bibliography
"Biographical Notes." The Pre-Raphaelites. London: The Tate Gallery / Penguin Books, 1984, 29-30.
Birchall, Heather. "Biographies." The Pre-Raphaelite Dream. Ed. Robert Upstone London: Tate Publishing, 2003, 184.
Maas, Rupert. "The life of Charles Allston Collins (1828-73): and his painting The Devout Childhood of St Elizabeth of Hungary." The British Art Journal XV, No. 3 (Spring 2015): 38-60.
Created 13 September 2024