French teacher and trained painter was born in Bresan_on, France and studied at the Acad_mie Julian in Paris. He also gained a Bachelor of Letters from the Universit_ de Paris. Collot d’Herbois taught for seven years in England, travelled in Spain and moved to the drier climate of Perth for his health.
He is listed in Wise’s Post Office Directories at 95 St George’s Terrace from 1916. Collot d’Herbois married Winifred Humann in Perth in 1921. He was trilingual and taught French at Claremont Teachers College, St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls, Guildford Grammar School and from 1923 at the University of Western Australia. Collot d’Herbois was a member of the University Art Club founded in 1928.
In 1929 the critic C.C. wrote in the Black Swan:
The varied mediums used by M. R. Collot d’ Herbois and the differing scenes he has chosen to depict show him to be a versatile artist. He can gain an effect of breadth of breath and character by the most delicate pen-work in The Estuary, an Australian river scene, and can marshall the colours on his water-colour and oils palettes so as to bring out with technical finish the warm gold-orange sunlight which gives a sleepy effect to the creamy shuttered buildings of southern Europe. He exhibited also a pastel which exemplified again the light sure touch with which his work is instinctive.
Collot d’Herbois resigned in 1931 after a scandal with a student and moved to Melbourne for a while. He returned to a small farm at Bedfordale where he was supported by his wife. Collot d’Herbois continued to paint and exhibited Afternoon on the River in the Art Competition at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 1950.
- Writers:
- Dr Dorothy Erickson
- Date written:
- 2010
- Last updated:
- 2011
