Colin Self (draft): Unseen
-
‘I think it’s Colin who is the greatest living British artist.’
– Marianne Faithfull
-
-
Frith Street Gallery is delighted to present a major exhibition of works by Colin Self. Presented across two floors, this is the artist's first London retrospective since Colin Self's Colin Selfs at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1986. The show includes rarely seen pieces from public and private collections, as well as the first showing of 365: A Journey in that Direction – an endlessly fascinating and eclectic multi-media installation of 365 wall-based works ongoing since the year 2000.
Colin Self: Unseen is curated by writer and curator Ian Collins.
-
-
Turning 85 this year, the artist was born between Luftwaffe bombing raids on his native city of Norwich and just before the fields beyond his family house were claimed for Rackheath Airfield, a huge American military base. Self has always had a sense of living on the edge – between city and country, land and sea, nature reserves and rubbish dumps, peace and war, past and present.
The exhibition begins with several works relating to war and militarism. From the Cold War and World War Two, to the ancient aggression of the Odyssey's Cyclops.
-
-
Vitrine: Leopardskin Nuclear Bomber No. 2, 1963. Tate, purchased 1993
Wall: Guard Dog on a Missile Base No. 1, 1965. Tate, purchased 1974
-
Left: Prelude to 1000 Temporary Objects of our Times No.7 (Nude Triptych), 1971
Right: Cyclops from 'The Odyssey' suite, 2002
-
Self often makes work in sequences and the ground floor gallery mirrors this through thematic groupings that traverse the decades.
-
-
Spilling over painting in oil and watercolour, drawing, printmaking, frottage, collage, sculpture and ceramics, the art of Colin Self is endlessly inventive, gently subversive and profoundly playful. It stands for humane optimism in the face of oblivion.
-
Left: The Baedecker bombing of Norwich (1942?) My mother going 'up the City' with me in my pushchair - seeing the devastation, 1970-90s.
Right: Mickey Mouse in Norwich, 14th July, 1982
By the time Colin was growing up, American culture began to permeate Britain. In the 1930s, symbols of America such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck preceded the arrival of G.I.s into Norwich with the US entry into the war.
-
-
The Acle Sale, from Inside my Van, about to Draw, 25th August, 1988. Photo © Norfolk Museums Service
-
A master of technique, in these three works Self has used spray paint on leaves to create representations of the plants themselves.
(Crepuscular Iris, 1981 (centre) is one of the Self works used in the final Marianne Faithfull album She Walks in Beauty.)
-
The fields surrounding his childhood home were gradually covered by an American air base and became a bombing target, leading him to feel as though he was living on the edge of danger, an experience that entered his psyche. This is referenced in the next part of the exhibition with imagery of birds, including Dead Dove of Peace (Springs Fireplace Road series), 2009 (centre) alongside a hopeful dove over a Russian cityscape entitled Peace on Earth, 1986 (right).
-
With his vernacular imperatives and virtuoso use of anything he finds, Self shows us what a master illusionist he is, while at the same time revealing to us exactly how he is making the work. The illusion embodies its own artifice.
-
The Ploughman, 2007
-
-
Cornfield with Bales, Plumstead, Norfolk, Looking East, 1984
-
-
365: A journey in that direction
Our survey includes a first showing of 365: A journey in that direction – a multi-media mosaic evolving since the millennium. A pictorial diary has not stopped at the Self-imposed limit suggested by the title. Speeding up through lockdown, the idea of the days of a year represented in 365 20x20cm canvases is now exceeded. At this moment the journey in the direction of wherever inspiration leads comprises 372 visual and thoughtful stepping-stones in a series still in progress.
-
-
Every 365 picture has a story, hidden or revealed. Here are ironic nods to giants – a Dali-like Self-portrait with joke-shop swivel eyes; a boyhood photo set in a Mondrian grid (Broadland Boogie Woogie). A Wymondham College scarf has been cut into seven collaged pieces. Wooden birds spring from a dismembered cuckoo clock. The latest tile in the mosaic, ending a full-wall Frith Street Gallery display, depicts Aloka the rescue mutt peace-walking with Buddhist monks through America. It is the antidote to Guard Dog on a Missile Base No. I with which, in one of the 20th century’s most powerful drawings, Colin Self referenced the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
-
-
He sees in the driftwood and pebbles that he finds on nearby Bacton beach the profiles of people and the shapes of animals. His collagist instinct identifies through assemblage the features of cartoon characters. It is not only that he makes use of what he finds, but what he finds propels the form and idea of the work itself: the genesis and manifestation of the work become one and the same thing.
-
A selection of works from 365: A journey in that direction, 2000-26
-
-
Colin Self is not interested in the hierarchy of images. For him, the image on a biscuit packet has equal potency to the image of the Mona Lisa.
– Tacita Dean
-
Booklet
Several texts on this webpage are taken from a booklet produced on the occasion of the exhibition featuring essays by Tacita Dean and exhibition's curator Ian Collins.
-
All works © the artist, DACS 2026
Installation views: Ben Westoby / Fine Art Documentation
The lower gallery at Golden Square is accessed by 21 steps. We regret that it is not wheelchair accessible. High-resolution photography of 365: A journey in that direction is available to view at the gallery. For futher information please contact info@frithstreetgallery.com
