Alan Collins (sculptor)

Alan Collins (15 August 1928 – 18 October 2016) was an English-born sculptor noted for his work at Guildford Cathedral.

After continuing his career in England, Collins moved to the United States and continued working there as an artist and, for more than 20 years, as a professor of art at Seventh-day Adventist universities.

Collins work primarily focused on evocative Biblical stories told in outdoor sculptures, which has been described as "24-hour, 365-days-a-year silent sermons."

Collins was born in the village of Beddington, in northeast Surrey, England.

At the age of 16, after attending public schools, Collins entered Wimbledon School of Art.

While there he earned first prize in an England-wide competition.

Having won a scholarship for the Royal College of Art, he studied sculpture.

Collins developed a lifelong connection to the Adventist Church after having attended a meeting by Australian evangelist Thomas J. Bradley in Corydon, England.

His sculptures were exhibited at the Royal Society for the Arts and the Royal Academy, one of which was Head of a King, in Maltese stone, exhibited in 1946 at Exhibition 20 by the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society when he was a student at Wimbledon College of Art.

At a Seventh-day Adventist Church in Holloway, London, Collins met his wife Jeanne Fuegi, and they were married in 1954.

When Collins first began carving in stone he used limestone from Malta, which was in great supply during and after World War II as it had been used by supply ships as ballast when returning to England without cargo.

In 1964 Collins was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors and received the Society's Sir Otto Beit Medal for his stone carving of St. Martha of Bethany at Guildford Cathedral.

In 1968 he moved to the United States and began a career of over 20 years, teaching at Seventh-day Adventists universities, including Atlantic Union College (1968–1971) in Massachusetts, Andrews University (1971–1978) in Michigan, and Loma Linda University (La Sierra Campus) (1978–1989) in California.

As a result of his years of work teaching at Adventist universities, he developed a "signature style" that is attributed to Adventist college works.

After retiring from teaching, Collins worked in Phoenix, Oregon on his own works made in many mediums: bronze, wood, clay, wood, concrete and stone.

He created many works for the Adventist Church, and also conducted lectures and showed his work at Adventist colleges.

After beginning his career in England, Collins,x moved to the United States in 1968 with his wife Jeanne and their daughter and son.

They first lived in South Lancaster, Massachusetts.

They moved to Michigan in 1971, where Collins taught at Andrews University (a Seventh-day Adventist university in Berrien Springs.) In 1978 Collins and his family moved to California where Collins taught for 11 years at La Sierra University (another Seventh-day Adventist university that was located in Riverside.)

Collins' wife Jeanne Fuegi suffered a long battle with cancer and died in 1992.

In 1993, Collins married his second wife Aliki After his retirement from sculpting, he moved to Bridport, Dorset, England.

He moved back to England in 2013, and lived in Bridport, Dorset until his death.

Aside from Collins' work at Guildford Cathedral, he executed other works in England before moving to the United States.

Most notably, he designed and carved the John F. Kennedy Memorial at Runnymede.

In the United States he created sculptures largely for religious organisations, commissions from hospitals and private individuals.

He never used models for his sculptures, they were all created using his own imagination.

He was noted for being very knowledgeable of human anatomy and he always taught human anatomy to his sculpture students.

This information came from his second wife Aliki Collins.

Collins' most extensive work was created for the exterior of Guildford Cathedral, including:

"Fire is perhaps the most memorable visual form by which God has made His presence known to men. The burning bush, the guiding pillar of fire, the all-consuming fire on Mount Carmel, the tongues of fire at Pentecost and the eventual purification of the world by fire are pictures that come quite readily to mind. Being symbolic, my representation of fire became formalized, differing from the fluctuating form of fire itself. An artist may frequently attempt to make a visual analogy between differing visual forms, creating a bridge that will unite seemingly disparate qualities to form a new reality. In bringing together the two-halves of my design I trapped a space that outlines the form of a wheat ear, the wheat that God will harvest when the chaff has all been burned. At the center of the design is a calm, stable form in clear plexiglass which I think of as the quiet flame of God's presence – the still small voice at the heart of every fiery experience."

The following is a partial list of Collins' other works.