Reader tells me more about artist Collins Thomas

I’m always uncovering artists at auction who are unfamiliar to me. So, it’s a delight when I learn that they’re still alive and I can interview them. Sometimes, though, they aren’t and I can find very little about them.

Most of the artwork that attracts me was created by artists from the early part of the 20^th century and the artists have passed on. They worked during a time when avenues for exhibitions weren’t as plentiful or varied, so they and their legacies got lost. Also, many of them were local artists who painted or sculpted for the love of it rather than the accolades. I usually have to piece together their lives, and that’s almost impossible to do sometimes. I try anyway because I want to spread their names and their works across a wide spectrum so everyone can know them.

So I was thrilled recently to get an email from a reader who said he had known a Philadelphia artist – and most of the ones I come across are from the city – named Collins Thomas, whom I wrote about in October. I had bought at auction a small collage assembled by him in 1997 titled “The News Collage.”

In my research, I found several of his paintings on the web but very little about Thomas the person and artist – only that he lived from 1928-1998, attended the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts, and was known for his street collages and oil paintings. Since the subjects in most of his paintings I found on the web were African Americans, I assumed that he was, too. I was wrong. Since he was a painter of Philadelphia street scenes, African Americans were part of that experience.

Here’s the reader’s background on Thomas, which helped to fill out part of his life. The reader also promised to do some research and get back to me:

“My wife and I and some friends … met Collins several times in his studio in Philly when he was alive. We have the largest private collection of his work and love every piece. Collins was very shy and a bit of a recluse. He was Caucasian and looked a bit like Andy Warhol – you hardly knew he was there, even standing in his presence. It took several years for Collins to get comfortable with us buying his work. He did not like to part with it and seldom sold or exhibited his work and never invited people to his studio in Philly, on South Street, except those close friends we introduced, personally, to Collins.

We have one piece in particular, which might be his masterpiece and won best in show at a gallery in Philly, but he refused to sell it. Finally, years later after getting to know Collins, he sold it to me, but only after I stopped asking him. I think he sold it to me knowing I would never re-sell it.

From looking at his work, especially the ones depicted on this site (my blog), you would imagine Collins travelled, but surprisingly, he did not. I believe he went to Italy once in his life and that may have been it. He travelled by looking through magazines, which he also incorporated into some of his collage work, but all his subjects and composition were Philadelphian, and once you know that, it becomes a picture as clear as day.

One of his works in particular that we have in our bedroom, at first appearance, seems like a scene in the French West Indies, but if you look closely and above the fence you can make out the distinctive Philly skyline.

Some of the words he displays in his paintings are meaningless, although they look like words. I asked Collins about that and he replied, ‘I just liked the way the letters looked and sounded together.’ He also loved numbers and many of his works will display that. We have two self-portraits and the only self-portraits I have ever seen of Collins—both of him shaving.

He died, sadly. I seem to remember he subscribed to the thinkings of Christian Science and when he had a stroke, he opted not to seek out medical help and that led to complications. He lived with a woman, above a shoe store in the building he owned, which upstairs had a living quarters and above that his studio. I never knew the relationship of the woman he lived with, but a year after his death, I called Collins to arrange another visit and the woman answered and informed me Collins had died—very matter of fact. I asked what became of his art, of which he had hundreds of paintings, some finished, some started and abandoned, some painted over and her reply left me speechless—It was all thrown away.

He was a brilliant painter and quite an interesting artist that the world should have known more of. He grew up in Havre de Grace, MD, and later settled in Philly, where he lived out his days.

We miss him, but his art lives on and everyone who has ever visited our home becomes transfixed on his work—as I do every time I open the door.”