This page is a work in progress, and will be updated with additional information about Collier Smithers.

Relationship to john william waterhouse:

Artist, and neighbour at Primrose Hill Studios: Collier Smithers occupied No. 5 from 1892-3, and No. 10 from 1894-c.1900. Waterhouse occupied No. 6 during this same period.

Brief Biography:

SMITHERS, Collier (1867-1943)

Collier Twentyman Smithers was born in Buenos Aires in 1867, son of Arthur Edward Smithers (Director of the English Bank of the River Plate) and Elleena Maxwell Twentyman. Collier died on 7th December 1943 in Kensington, he was living at 43 Roland Gardens, Kensington.

Portrait, figure and rustic painter. Exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1892-1936: R.Norman Shaw, Esq, RA (1892); A Sea Witch (1897); The Princess Permits (1915); Rena (1924); A Feathered Sultan, Startled (1935); A Country Meeting, The Roosters (?) Siesta (1936). Other works include the portraits: Surg.-Lieut. Leopold Hudson, Duke of Cambridge's Hussars (1894) Adam and the Apple (Adam Alexander Dawson) (about 1917), Elleena Maxwell Twentyman (date?). The latter two are in a private collection.

In 1892 Smithers was living at 5 Primrose Hill Studios, off Fitzroy Road, North London. This
may account for his similarity in style to Waterhouse, as the latter painter also lived at Primrose Hill Studios. By 1894 Smithers had moved to 10 Primrose Hill Studios (probably a larger studio than no. 5); by 1924 he was living in High Wycombe (The Gable, Lane End); and by 1935 he was living at 75 Longridge Road, Earls Court, London.

(Thanks to Dr Russ Sims FRSC for help with this biography).

DOCUMENTED RELATIONSHIP:

- Listed in The Royal Blue Book of 1900 as being Waterhouse's neighbour:

Primrose Hill Studios
6. Waterhouse, John Wm, R.A., artist
10. Smithers, Collier, artist

Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts)