BRADLEY COLLINS

COLLINS--William Bradley Isham, Jr. William Bradley "Brad" Isham Collins Jr., of New York City and Fishers Island, NY, died on February 16, 2026 at home in Manhattan. Brad had been working until this past year as an art history professor at Parsons School of Design, where he taught for 37 years. Brad was born in 1955 in New York City, the son of William Bradley Isham Collins Sr., an independent investor, and Carol Ohmer Collins, a philanthropist and former president of the Colony Club. Brad's family's tenure in New York extended back to 1661, when his antecedent, Quaker abolitionist John Bowne, established himself in New Amsterdam. Brad attended the Buckley School, moving on to the Groton School in 1969, where he distinguished himself by winning every award on Prize Day. From there, Bradley matriculated at Harvard College (class of '77). In defiance of his conservative upbringing, Brad engaged in anti-war protests and rejected membership to the elite Porcellian Club when he was tapped. Counter to the counter-culture, he'd wear jackets and ties instead of blue jeans. As a contributor to the Crimson, Brad became known for his astringent cultural criticism, particularly of popular music. Widening his audience, Brad applied his writerly prowess to a stream of influential music reviews for the now-defunct Boston Phoenix. He covered indie acts such as the Ramones, skewered sacred cows such as the Grateful Dead, and vaunted such outlier artists as Bryan Ferry. Brad would attribute his later hearing impairment to his ubiquitous presence at rock concerts. As an incoming student in the fall of 1980, Brad encountered his future wife Amy Fine at Columbia University's Art History PhD program, where he earned his Master's with a thesis on Jean Arp and the Origins of Biomorphism. Although he majored in Modernist art, Brad diverged from that path to write a groundbreaking dissertation on Leonardo da Vinci and psychoanalysis. The dissertation was the basis of his first book, Leonardo, Psychoanalysis, and Art History: A Critical Study of Psychobiographical Approaches to Leonardo da Vinci. This important study brought him into the fold of likeminded art historical and psychoanalytic scholars, who invited him to become a founding member of the Committee of Arts and Psychoanalysis of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. Brad returned to Modernist art with Van Gogh and Gauguin: Electric Arguments and Utopian Dreams, continuing in this rigorous and elegant follow-up book to combine the disciplines of psychoanalysis and art history. At CUNY Hunter College, NYU, and at Parsons, Brad became a faculty member in the discipline of art history. His elective courses on Michelangelo and Leonardo incorporating psychoanalysis with art history and his erudite examinations of the nude in art became gold standards of the Parsons curriculum. The popularity of his classes motivated Brad to join the school's curriculum committee. Brad contributed to Art Journal, Art in America, Psychoanalysis and Visual Arts, Source: Notes on the History of Art, Atelier, Psychoanalytic Psychology, Woman's Art Journal, and The Village Voice. He gave talks regularly at College Art Association and American Psychoanalytic Association conferences, the Warburg Institute, and the International Psychoanalytical Association Symposia in Florence, which he helped plan and organize. In New York, Brad supported institutions that formed the fabric of his life: the Frick Collection, the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Jewish Museum, and the Central Park Conservancy. In a similar spirit, he helped to support local institutions on Fishers Island, where he happily spent summers since childhood. As a pastime, Brad read the complete works of Aristophanes, Dante, and Freud as well as the entire texts of the Quran, the Torah, and the New Testament. His omnivorous reading also encompassed English, Russian, and French literature along with detective novels. He subscribed to periodicals covering the full political spectrum, while also daily consuming the New York papers, pop culture news, and essentially any bit of printed matter placed before him. He was a dedicated viewer of television and movies of all genres, gravitating to Hitchcock, the screwball comedies of Preston Sturges, and sitcoms such as "The Odd Couple." On any given day, Brad, who never owned a cell phone, could be found meandering through museums and art galleries, keeping up with his monthly list of both contemporary and historical exhibitions. He also roamed the city streets, architectural guide in hand, familiarizing himself with overlooked decorative elements of buildings and the obscure names of their makers. Brad endeared himself to those who knew him with his dry wit, his kindness, his gentleness, his patience, and his modesty. Though Brad was quiet and reserved, content to spend time alone with his books, he was devoted to his lifelong friends and family. When his daughter, Flora, was still too small to write, he would diligently type out the made-up stories she'd dictate to him, taking great care to print out these tales and organize them in labeled file jackets (Flora is now a published novelist). Brad possessed the singular ability to engage earnestly in intellectual repartee with anyone who crossed his path. No matter who they were, Brad listened thoughtfully to their opinions on a subject. Brad is survived by his siblings, James Connell Collins and Carol Collins Malone, his wife, Amy Fine Collins, his daughter, Flora Collins, seven nieces and nephews, and his sister-in-law Erika Fine. His sister, Louise Collins, predeceased him by three weeks.