Lady Godiva, 1898
Oil on canvas
by John Collier

John Maler Collier OBE RP ROI (January 27, 1850–April 11, 1934) was a British writer and painter in the Pre-Raphaelite style. 

Collier was one of the 24 founding members of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, of which he became Vice President. He was also a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. He exhibited no fewer than 130 paintings at the Royal Academy and 165 at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, as well as many others in galleries throughout the country and abroad. He was the author of The Primer of Art (1882), A Manual of Oil Painting (1886) and The Art of Portrait Painting (1905). He was awarded the OBE in 1920. He was the subject of The Art of the Honourable John Collier (1914) by W H Pollock, published by the Art Journal, which lists all his most important subjects between 1875 and 1914, whether portraits, or historical or other dramatic scenes. It has 50 illustrations and 6 colour plates of his works, and an interesting photograph of his studio.

The range of Collier’s portrait subjects can be seen from the fact that, in 1893 for example, his subjects included the Bishop of Shrewsbury (Sir Lovelace Stamer), A Glass of Wine with Caesar Borgia, Sir John Lubbock FRS, A N Hornby (Captain of the Lancashire Eleven), A Witch, A Tramp, and the Bishop of Hereford (Dr Atlee).

His commissioned portrait of King George V as Master of Trinity House in 1901 when Duke of Cornwall and York, although very far from being his best work, shows the extent of his fashionable reputation.

Lilith, 1892
Oil on canvas
by John Collier

Water Nymph
Oil on canvas
by John Collier