DUXBURY – Jane Flavell Collins was most famous as a talented and perceptive courtroom artist who would drop what she was doing in an instant to head into Boston for a good case, even in rush hour traffic.
Her pastels and charcoal pieces moved into action as she surveyed the scene in U.S. District Court. Quickly, expertly, she would pick out elements and features to engage television and newspaper audiences – details like Whitey Bulger s perfectly shaped head and shoe bomber Richard Reid s temper tantrum when challenged by the judge.
Building her reputation as a courtroom artist in the 1990s, Collins covered most of the big cases in the Boston media market for the next 30 years, including the Boston Marathon bombing trial and actress Lori Loughlin when she was sentenced in the college admissions bribery scandal. The public came to recognize her style and counted on her to take them to the scene, stirring vicarious emotions of fascination, empathy, outrage and sometim