James Collinson, possibly a self-portrait (courtesy of Artvee (public domain)).
James Collinson was born 9 May 1825 in Pleasley, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. He was the seventh and final child of Robert Collinson, a bookseller, stationer, printer and sub-postmaster, and his wife Mary Harvey. Early in life James received art instruction from a Mrs. Ann Paulson, a local Mansfield artist. By 1846 James was living in London. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools where his fellow pupils included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. In 1846 Collinson first exhibited at the Society of British Artists and he exhibited at the British Institution from 1856. In 1847 he exhibited his first painting at the Royal Academy, The Charity Boys Début, where it met with critical acclaim.
By attending Christ Church in Albany Street Collinson came into contact with other members of the Rossetti family including Christina Rossetti. Collinson had converted to Roman Catholicism but Christina Rossetti only agreed to become engaged to him if he returned to the Church of England, which did in 1848 prior to their engagement. That same year he became a member of the Cyclographic Society and was elected a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood at D. G. Rossetti’s suggestion. Collinson contributed a long poem and an etching, The Child Jesus, to the second issue of The Germ. Collinson’s engagement to Christina Rossetti ended in the spring of 1850 when he reverted to Catholicism. On May 20, 1850 Collinson resigned from the P.R.B. on the grounds that membership was incompatible with his Catholic faith but he continued his friendship with its members. In 1852 he sold his easel and painting equipment and on January 15, 1853 he entered Hodder Place near Stonyhurst, the Jesuit College in Lancashire, as a novitiate to train for the priesthood.
Collinson discontiued his studies some time between September 1854 and January 1855 without completing his religious training and resumed his painting career. He exhibited genre subjects at the Royal Academy and the Society of British Artists from 1855 onwards. His relationship with William Michael Rossetti was restored sufficiently that Collinson was asked to contribute paintings for the Exhibition of British Art that toured America in 1857-58. He was secretary of the Society of British Artists from 1861-1870.
On February 9, 1858 at the Brompton Oratory Collinson married Eliza Wheeler, a sister-in-law of the painter John Rogers Herbert. By July 1859 the couple had moved to Woodcote, New Road, in Epsom, Surrey. Their only child, Robert Vincent Collinson, was born there that same month. By 1864 the family was living at 15 St. John’s Park, Upper Holloway, in Middlesex. Collinson made occasional visits to France, including an extended stay in Brittany in the late 1870s, where his son Robert was a student studying at Rennes. By 1875 the Collinson’s were living at 370 Cold-Harbour-lane, Brixton. In 1878 he painted The Holy Family, one of his most Pre-Raphaelite paintings since the 1850s.
By 1880 Collinson had returned to London because his son Robert was then studying for the priesthood at St. Thomas’s Seminary in Hammersmith. James and his wife lived at 19 Eastlake Road, Camberwell. Collinson continued painting until at least 1880 because three of his paintings were exhibited at the Society of British Artists in 1881. He died of pneumonia on January 24, 1881 at 16 Paulet Road in Camberwell and was buried at Camberwell Old Cemetery in Forest Hill Road.
Valerie Cox has commented on how Collinson was viewed early on by his artistic contemporaries:
In Hunt’s reminiscences and in other writings by contemporaries Collinson is reported as being a conscientious painter who sometimes joined in social activities but is portrayed as having little sense of humour and a tendency to fall asleep during meetings of the Brotherhood [PRB], and even while employing a paid model to sit for him. This dismissive attitude is evident even in the days before the formation of the Brotherhood” [Cox, 1995, 2]
Collinson’s nickname was, in fact, “The Dormouse,” likely a reference to the somnolent dormouse in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Helen Newman has speculated that Collinson may even have been the inspiration for the character of the dormouse and that perhaps he suffered from narcolepsy (163).
Bibliography
Bodkin, Thomas. “James Collinson.” Apollo XXXI (May 1940): 128-33.
Cox, Valerie A. “The Life of James Collinson: 1825-1881.” The Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society III, no. 3 (Autumn 1995): 1-14.
Cox, Valerie A. “The Works of James Collinson: 1825-1881.” The Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society IV, no. 3 (1996): 1-16.
Newman, Helen D. James Collinson (aka “The Dormouse"). Foulsham: Reuben Books, 2016.
Parkinson, Ronald. “James Collinson.” Pre-Raphaelite Papers, edited by Leslie Parris. London: Tate Gallery Publications 1984, 61-75.
Created 29 February 2024