Colin Self

In 1965 Colin had his first stellar one man show 'Drawings by Colin Self’ with Godfrey Pilkington at the Piccadilly Gallery, London.  Later represented in the same year by London’s Robert Fraser Gallery in Duke Street, where his diorama sculpture Guard Dog on a Missile Base and Leopardskin Nuclear Bomber were first exhibited.  

An important and widely-exhibited figure in British art, Colin Self is known for being Pop Art’s political conscience, his works being held in many collections including MoMA New York and the London Tate Gallery collection, Self’s Nuclear Victim is on permanent display in The Imperial War Museum, London.

Colin uses diverse means and subject matters to produce a wide range of drawings, collages, paintings, ceramics, sculpture and maquettes.  

The late Richard Hamilton once spoke of Self as "the best draughtsman in England since William Blake, he uses the pencil in such an unusual way,” adding that when he went through a period of landscape watercolours it was "as if Cotman had come to life again.”  

Calvin Winner, curator Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, observes “Perhaps the most striking element of Self’s art is that his entire output remains remarkably current and contemporary. His concerns are our concerns and he continues to reveal and expose art as the essence of life.”

Colin exhibited at the Kasmin Gallery and the influential Robert Fraser Gallery in London alongside fellow British Pop artists Peter Blake, Clive Barker and Richard Hamilton who became household names in the early 60s by creating memorable images culled from advertising, film and TV.

He has lived in London, Germany, Scotland and from 1964 to 1980, he taught part-time at Norwich School of Art and in 2001 Colin received an honorary Doctorate. In 2006 he was awarded the freedom of the City of Norwich.

He has had a long, productive and eventful life with numerous solo exhibitions (30+), and his work is in several national collections including the Tate Collection, the V&A Museum Collection, the Arts Council Collection, The Imperial War Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

1950s AND 1960s

It was the height of the Cold War, yet few artists were addressing the threat to human existence that it represented. Art had not been seen as a forum to discuss the threat of impending war since WWII in the anti-war collages of German artist John Heartfield. Colin’s drawings, prints and paintings from this period share Heartfield’s attacking approach. Colin’s seminal drawing of a wolf-like guard dog baring its teeth with serried ranks of missiles behind it, stemmed from this period and was eventually bought for the Tate Collection in 1974. Guard Dog on a Missile Base No1, 1965, was intended as a stark visualisation https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/self-guard-dog-on-a-missile-base-no-1-t01850 . Colin recalls his approach to his subject at the time: ‘the conceptual idea of nuclear warfare became mixed with that of animal nature and aggression’.

In 1967 Colin joined Alecto Studio in London and started work on a series of prints called Out of Focus Objects and Flowers. He was awarded several prestigious prizes for drawing and for his prints produced at Alecto Studio. In parallel to his Cold War work were several strands to Colin’s imagery that married subjects as diverse as fast food, or ideas about nature in advertising, or how women were represented, to recognised art genres in still life, landscape and sculpture (or maquettes as he prefers to call them). These early motifs can be found in his work today.

His hotdog drawings first appear in the 60s and have morphed in various guises as collage or in heavily shaded pencil, varying from colourfully appealing, to a study in an unappetising charcoal grey. A discarded wooden ice-lolly stick suggests the rounded ends of a frankfurter in his hotdogs. The squirt of mustard, a foodstuff synonymous with his home city of Norwich, is made from yellow glue. Recent iterations of them have included spectacle cases representing the bun clamped around a charcoal sausage.

His ploughman series mimic advertising’s idolisation of the recently vanished past. These clever collages depict a lone figure of a farmer leading his horsedrawn plough across a field, they follow a well-practised marketing technique that appeals to a consumer nostalgic for a simpler time. Persuaded by a satisfyingly bucolic image of a once natural product we are prepared to overlook the fact that the product (whether it be eggs, bread or potatos) is now produced on an industrial scale. Despite his foresight in tackling serious themes, Colin’s output has always been relatable, irreverent, and often delivered with a light touch and sardonic hutspa.

For periods from 1964 to 1980, he taught part-time at Norwich School of Art and in 2001 Colin received an honorary Doctorate. In 2006 he was awarded the freedom of the City of Norwich. His work has been included in many national and international exhibitions.