Ann Collins was born in Lyons, New York. Her father went to Colorado for his health and worked for a timber operations as an overseer soon after she was born. She lived with her parents, Cornelius and Lisetta, and older sister, Ellen. She grew up in a remote area of Colorado where buffalo ran wild on the 25 mile tract of land. At four years of age was given a pony. She was breaking in colts and riding any horse on the tract by the time she was eight years old. She began drawing ponies as a young girl and at the age of 14 went to school at a convent. Her father's health improved and the family returned to Lyons. In 1934, she graduated from Lyons Central School. She studied art at Syracuse University. Her professors encouraged her to pursue oil painting and two years later had her first exhibit on the lawn of the Saratoga gambling casino, Piping Rock, which her father ran with Red Dywer. Col. E.R. Bradley bought one of her paintings there and launched her career. She married Laramie Evans with whom she had a daughter, Larry Ann Evans. She lived in many places during her life and returned to Lyons, New York in 1975, where she lived New York until her death.
Career
Collins began painting thoroughbred racehorses in the 1930s. In 1941, she won first prize for Bronco at the Finger Lakes exhibition in northern New York. She became interested in painting racing colts in Florida at Hialeah and at Oriental Park in Havana. Collins held an exhibition in 1941 at Saratoga, New York and sold paintings to Al Sabath and Col. E. R. Bradley. She then painted Alsab, who won the Narragansett in the fall of 1942, for Sabath. To complete a painting, she researched the horse, visited its stable, and sketched the horse and any distinctive marks. Collins used vivid colors and illustrated the effects of sun and wind in her works. It took about a month to complete her realistic paintings that captured the horses personalities. In the early 1940s she worked in her Lyons, New York studio. Collins was hired by trainers, breeders and racehorse owners. The more than 75 racehorses that she painted through the 1980s include:
