John Collias was born on June 12, 1918 and died on March 29, 2017.

He was a Western American painter, illustrator, and commercial artist.

Collias was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, John lived and worked in Boise, Idaho, since the early 1940s and 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.

His prolific work spans a number of genres including portraiture, landscape art, wartime military posters, ad and billboard art.

Collias’ was perhaps best known regionally as the artist behind “A Portrait of A Distinguished Citizen,” a weekly portrait feature that ran in the Idaho Statesman from 1963 to 1993.

John Collias passed away in 2017.