COLLIER, Vanji
As Anna Evangeline Collier, she was born at Bromsgrove, Worcestershire on 24 April 1918, only daughter of the five children of Hon. Gerald Collier, son of the late Lord Monkswell and Lily Ermengaw Fanny Grant-Duff, daughter of the late Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff, who married at Framlingham, Suffolk on 21 July 1910. Using a first name of Vanji, a pupil at A. S. Neill's Summerhill School at Leiston, Suffolk. She exhibited at the Ipswich Art Club, from Seviss Lodge, Leiston in 1933, one work 'Weariness'. In 1939 an artist living at Dutch House Victory Road, Leiston together with her younger brother John Bernard Collier (15 May 1920-1993). She married at St Pancras, London in 1940, Elvin Thorgerson (21 September 1920-1988), of Norwegian descent, and their son was designer Storm Elvin Thorgerson (28 February 1944–18 April 2013) who, like his mother and uncle, was also educated at Summerhill. She was with the Land Army during the Second World War after which Vanji and Elvin later divorced. From about 1985 Vanji lived at 19 Earl Street, Cambridge. Anna Evangeline Thorgerson died on 14 September 2014, her will was proved at Ipswich.