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.  Colin had attended Norwich School of Art in the late 1950s followed by the Slade School of Art in the early 1960s. 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, former curator of the 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.”  In Colin’s own words, “Art is everything to me, it’s what runs through my arteries.”

Colin was awarded the Freedom of the City of Norwich 2006

Forthcoming Exhibition:  Colin Self: Unseen.  17 September – November 14 2026  Frith Street Gallery, Golden Square, London