John Collias

Who is John Collias?

John Collias is a Western American painter, illustrator, and commercial artist. Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he has lived and worked in Boise, Idaho, since the early 1940s and has contributed work to the Idaho Statesman, Boise Weekly, Life Magazine, the Gowen Field Beacon, the Allen Noble Boise State Athletic Hall of Fame, the College of Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame, and to the books Sawtooth Tales by Dick D’Easum and John Collias: Round About the Boise Valley. Collias’ prolific work spans a number of genres including portraiture, landscape art, wartime military posters, ad and billboard art. He is perhaps best known regionally as the artist behind “A Portrait of A Distinguished Citizen,” a weekly portrait feature that ran in the Idaho Statesman between the years of 1963 and 1993.