by Trood Sore | Sep 19, 2025 | Colin Moss, Ipswich, Self Portraits
The ‘Inward Looking’ self-portrait was painted in 1966 while Colin was living at 47 Warwick Road, Ipswich with his mother and sister, who had relocated from London to move in with him from about 1960.
The house, the first Colin owned, was a bland, three bedroom semi-detached property with stark aluminium window frames, part of a new development on land which had once been his uncle George Moss’s orchard.
Up to this time Colin (divorced in 1947 after a hasty wartime marriage) had lived an independent bachelor type of life in rented digs, using the art school facilities as studio space. This painting is probably one of the most self-revealing of all his self-portraits, showing the artist aged fifty-two “encased in middle age” as he described himself. The children seen playing outside in the distant garden behind him also reflect his sense of lost youth and freedom.
Colin was able to escape the limitations of Ipswich suburbia when he travelled widely around European cities during college summer holidays. In 1961 he attended Oskar Kokoschka’s summer school in Salzburg.
This had the effect of releasing his previously subdued colour palette into a riot of primary colours applied with emotional and psychological tension, as demonstrated in this defiant self-portrait.
Colin’s understanding of Kokoschka’s methods was also very influential on his own students, some with very clear recollections of their trip to the Tate Gallery with him to see the Kokoschka exhibition in 1962. Oskar Kokoschka 1886–1980 | Tate.
© National Portrait Gallery, London.
NPG number 7168
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw307578
by Trood Sore | Apr 29, 2020 | Drawing, Ipswich, Life Drawing, Self Portraits
Reading Time : 6 minutes
“Colin Moss has always been something of a cultural icon in his native East Anglia. Not only was he one of the nation’s great contemporary artists – his death warranted fulsome obituaries in the national broadsheets – but he was also a passionate teacher.
He was senior lecturer in figure drawing at the highly regarded Ipswich Art School for 33 years. Among his students was Maggi Hambling, who opened a major retrospective of his work”.
Andrew Clarke art critic East Anglian Daily Times (2010)
Social Realism
“He [Colin Moss] shows the unprivileged, indeed underprivileged, members of our society – men and women on the street corner, outside the pubs, marooned on the park bench… Somehow Moss, in his great parade of people and situations is most concerned with the very basic facts of existence – the struggle to survive, to find a degree of comfort, to work, to love, and to discern, hopefully, some light at the end of the tunnel.”
Michael Chase, The Minories Gallery (1983)
L-R : ‘The Mulberry Tree Pub’, ‘Cattle Drovers’, ‘Boy Blue’, ‘Discussing Terms’, ‘The Window Cleaner’ (c1950-1990)
Expressionism
“Colin Moss is that rare being – a happy Expressionist … He slashes and whirls his pigment into thick, ecstatic confections; they sing out from the walls, like rich base baritones, drenching everything in a cascade of boisterous colour; palpitating reds – an almost unbelievably skillful range of violet-mauve-purple vein-shattering blues – and vibrant falsetto greens…”
Mervyn Levy, Arts Review, February 1955
Life Drawing
“An accomplished draughtsman, practitioner and teacher of life drawing since his early training at Plymouth Art School and the Royal College of Art, and master of what he called “the artist’s greatest challenge”
Chloe Bennett – Art Curator, Ipswich Museums (1978 – 1992)
L-R ‘Pastel Nude’, ‘Woman on a Red Drape’, ‘Female Nude’, ‘Rolling Nude’, ‘Bathers’ (c1950-1980)
War
“I made drawings such as The Guardroom in the immediate post-war years, but then I gradually moved out of the war ethos and it wasn’t until very much later indeed that I suddenly had an inclination to do more of these memories of the war. I found that although it was 30 or 40 years after I remember them quite vividly.”
Colin Moss: Life Observed
Although Colin Moss’s work as a camouflage designer for the Ministry of Home Security is now acclaimed, with watercolours in the Imperial War Museum and Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum, it was his experiences as a soldier on active duty in north Africa and Palestine during WWII that led to the production of some of his most powerful pieces.
Religion & Society
Once his teaching duties at Ipswich Art School were finished for the day, Colin Moss would cross the road to The Arboretum pub for a drink. Very much a “fireplace and floorboard” pub, with little in the way of creature comforts, Colin felt at home amongst the working men and the “down at heel” who drank there and the camaraderie of its rough and ready clientele is reflected in many of these works such as The Last Supper and Carrying the Dead Christ. In 1990, an exhibition of this work entitled ‘Paintings, Religious & Profane’ was held at the Chappel Galleries in Essex. The exhibition received a great deal of media attention, including an interview for BBC News.
Colin Moss ‘The Last Supper’ 1950
Flowers
“Retirement in 1979 after 32 years of teaching at the Ipswich School of Art brought Colin greater freedom to paint at a time when he was still at the height of his powers. The 1980s saw him take special pleasure in painting oil studies of his garden and a wonderful series of flowers in vibrant watercolours.”
Chloe Bennett – Art Curator, Ipswich Museums (1978 – 1992)
Colin Moss ‘Irises in a Landscape’ 1986
Self Portraits
“I was very much obsessed with Rembrandt … the fact that he did so many self-portraits from being very young influenced me in the same direction”.
Colin Moss: Life Observed
Art News & Review (now known as ArtReview) began publishing artists’ self-portraits on its front pages in 1949. There was usually a short biography alongside the self-portrait, often written by a friend of the artist. Colin’s was featured on 18th August 1956. In 1982 the Tate Gallery Archive acquired 122 of these original self-portraits, including Colin’s ink & brush self-portrait from the August 1956 edition.
Colin Moss ‘Colin Moss in a Roll Neck’ 1960
“I have always thought of him as the supreme strong man among Suffolk painters. In this he is a constant expressionist, observing and committing swiftly to paper the essentials of a subject.”
Bernard Reynolds – Sculptor
Colin Moss Biography – Bonhams London
Colin Moss was born at 28 Cemetery Road, Ipswich and spent his formative years there. The family moved to Plymouth in 1921, following the death of his father in action during World War One. It was in Devon that he first became absorbed in fine art and drawing, and he attended Plymouth Art School from 1930-1934. A scholarship to study at The Royal College of Art followed, seeing him graduate in 1938. As his style developed, his influences included Degas, Van Gogh and the German Expressionists.
At the outbreak of World War Two Colin was working for the Camouflage Unit of the Air Ministry. Together with one hundred and fifty other artists he was tasked with disguising factories and power stations. After two years he received his papers and joined the Life Guards, spending the remainder of his war in the Middle East. Although never an official war artist he sketched prolifically and was keen to document his experiences; a number of his pictures from this period are represented in The Imperial War Museum. Colin continued to revisit War as a theme in his work throughout his career.
L-R ‘The Big Tower Camouflaged’, Art.IWM ART LD 3025, ‘Water Camouflage’ Art.IWM ART LD 3027, ‘A Camouflage Scheme in Progress’ Art.IWM ART LD 3028 (1943)
Life in Civvy Street saw a return to his Ipswich roots when, in 1947, Colin accepted a post as Senior Lecturer at Ipswich Art School. He was to occupy this position until his retirement in 1979. In the interim years, and long after his retirement, he was increasingly recognised as a leading figure in the Regional Art scene. In 1980 he was elected Chairman of Ipswich Art Society and later became President, a position occupied by many great East Anglian artists before him, including Edward Seago, Alfred Munnings and Anna Airy.
Colin’s decision to pursue a dual career as artist and teacher perhaps illustrates the difficulties facing many professional artists. Though his painting career was never sidelined, there was inevitably some compromise as a result of the financial stability that teaching proffered. When teaching, his army background manifested itself in his disciplined and orderly classes. This approach, together with his firm belief in the importance of sound draughtsmanship and keen observation, influenced a generation of students, including Maggi Hambling and Brian Eno.
Interview with award winning ceramicist Annie Turner, Loewe Craft Prize Finalist 2019 Cavaliero Finn
He also taught by example, with his own work everpresent in the studio alongside that of his students, and would seek opportunities for his own work between classes. In his painting career he was a reluctant self-promoter, however initial forays into the London art scene in the 1950s saw some critical acclaim with representation through The Kensington Art Gallery and later The Zwemmer and Prospect Galleries. He shared exhibitions with the likes of John Bratby, Patrick Heron, Kyffin Williams and John Minton. In 1954, and again in 1956, he took time-off from teaching to concentrate fully on painting, his 1950s social-realism paintings culminating in his ‘big pictures’ of working men and women produced at the height of his artistic powers, as exemplified in the present collection.
L-R ‘Man with a Drill’, ‘Over the Garden Fence’, ‘Two Workmen’ ‘The Cattle Drovers’ (1947-1960)
His work is represented in many national collections : The British Museum, The Tate Archive Collection, Norwich Castle Museum, the Ben Uri Art Gallery, Leamington Spa Art Gallery, Nottingham Art Gallery and The Colchester and Ipswich Museums
by Trood Sore | Apr 24, 2020 | Camoufleur, Cubism, World War II
Colin Moss ‘Cubist figures’ (1950) Oil on Board
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Cubism, with its all complexity and restrictions, and with its links to Colin Moss’s wartime work as a camoufleur, provided a rich artistic vein that the artist could mine in the post-war years. Following his demobilization from the Army in 1947, Colin Moss returned to the UK and restarted a career that the war and the army had put on hold.
The Birth of Cubism
The term Cubism was inadvertently coined by the French painter Henri Matisse. Matisse was a juror for the Salon d’Automne in 1908 and, on seeing George Braque’s painting “Maisons à l’Estaque” (Houses at L’Estaque)” remarked “They’re made of little cubes!” and promptly rejected the work. His comment was later relayed to art critic Louis Vauxcelles and Cubism was born.
The Cubist Revolution
At the beginning of the 20th century, Cubism stood European art, with its devotion to perspective and realistic portrayal, on its head. Influenced by Paul Cezanne, George Braque and Pablo Picasso broke objects down into separate planes and then placed multiple versions of them within the same space on the canvas. Whilst at first glance their work appeared flat and two-dimensional, it actually depicted different viewpoints and perspectives within a single confine.
Pablo Picasso ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ (1907) Oil © 2020 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Museum of Modern Art
Cubism gives birth to Camouflage
When the First World War broke out in 1914, Cubist ideas of breaking objects, and bodies, into fragments and splinters suddenly took on a new relevance. Whilst armies in previous conflicts had flaunted their soldiers in uniforms with brightly coloured coats and hats, combatants of the first global conflict wanted to disappear. The advent of airplanes that could fly over soldiers huddling in trenches gave urgency to the need to disguise and dissemble.
And so Cubist ideas of breaking up line and form, distracting with patterns and disrupting with colour gave birth to strategic camouflage. Pablo Picasso is said to have exclaimed, on seeing a camouflaged canon in Paris in 1917, “It was us [the Cubists] who created that!”.
Officers serving in the French military camouflage unit became known as camoufleurs and the term was subsequently used in both world wars by all branches of the military and by all allied nations.
Dazzle Ships
The Royal Navy and Merchant Navy also adopted Cubist ideas, to protect warships and merchant vessels from German torpedoes, as did the US Navy. Ships were painted with various designs intended to distort the tell-tale features of a ship. Some designs distorted perspective, others made it difficult for attackers to focus on the ship as a target, creating delay or hesitation in the order to fire.
Roy Behrens, in the Encyclopaedia of Camouflage, refers to the dazzle ships as resembling ‘Cubist paintings on a colossal scale’.
A schematic drawing for Dazzle camouflage for the Royal Navy ‘Drake class’ armoured cruiser/converted minelayer HMS King Alfred (1917) Art.IWM DAZ 0029 2 © Imperial War Museum
Colin Moss – Camoufleur
Colin Moss served as a camoufleur from 1939 – 1943, working on the concealment of civilian installations. The camoufleurs of the British Camouflage Directorate were theatre set designers, practicing artists, sculptors, architects. They were recruited as “there was a natural partnership based on their aptitude for good visual recall, and their understanding of scale, colour and tone”.
The idea was to break up forms and outlines so that objects on the ground were difficult to spot, even against a shifting background (ie looking down from a plane) thus confusing “a pilot at a minimum of five miles distant and 5,000 feet up throughout daylight.” During his service in the Camouflage Directorate, Colin Moss designed a number of camouflage schemes for installations such as Stonebridge Park Power Station, London.
The influence of Cubism on the camoufleurs of World War II is easy to spot, not just in the desire to disrupt appearance and shape, but in the earthy, muted colour schemes. Early Cubist painters used restricted colour palettes to enhance the flattening effect. Camoufleurs (on both sides of the conflict) adopted similar colour schemes to further flatten and distort appearances.
German paint sample case for camouflaging aircraft runways “Camouflage” by Tim Newark
Life After Camouflage
Following his years in the Camouflage Directorate, in 1943 Colin Moss joined the Life Guards, part of the Household Cavalry, and served in the Middle East and Palestine until he was demobbed in 1947. This period largely put his artistic endeavours on hold, as life became swamped by the practicalities and harsh relentless discipline of soldiering. However, a few months before he was demobbed, Colin Moss produced three versions of a Palestinian landscape – one in pencil, then as a lithograph and finally, a hand coloured version of the lithograph.
Having spent four years working as a camoufleur, it is not surprising that he chose to produce work in a similar, Cubist, manner as life began to return to normal. The influence of the “analytical cubists” such as George Braque and Issachar Ber Rybak is evident.
Re-thinking my Career
“I had to re-think my whole career when I came back from the war. I started again with a totally different approach … I was doing lots of different things because I didn’t know what I wanted to be and it took me several years to form a personality!” Colin Moss: Life Observed
Having returned to his home town of Ipswich, and now working as a lecturer at Ipswich Art School, Colin Moss continued to experiment with different techniques and ideas. But his cubist-influenced, camoufleur background still resurfaced and those early days after the war saw a number of excursions into familiar territory.
Colin Moss ‘Cubist Landscape’ (1948) Oil
The unnamed piece below is thought to date from the late 1940s and illustrates the Cubist practice of using contrasting shading (known as chiaroscuro), dense cross hatching and patterning and, of course, multiple and contrasting vantage points.
Colin Moss, ‘Untitled Cubist Landscape’ (c1949)
Colin Moss ‘Cubist Still Life’ (c1949)
Colin Moss ‘Cubist figures’ (1950) Oil on Board
Moonlight Over the Third Reich
Following his retirement from teaching in 1979, Colin Moss revisited his wartime experiences after a gap of nearly four decades. During this time he produced a number of works (such as Playing Soldiers, Infantry and Self-Portrait as a Soldier) that capture the grim existence of an infantry man. One of the most haunting works he produced during this period was “Moonlight over the Third Reich”. During a trip to Poland, Colin Moss visited both the Auschwitz death camp and the Museum of Warsaw. He was profoundly moved by what he saw there.
“The painting arose from, I think, a feeling that I too must make some kind of record of the Holocaust.” Colin Moss: Life Observed
Three versions of this piece exist, each deeply affecting and troubling – these are not easy works to look at. And once more we see the artist returning to his wartime, camoufleur/cubist roots with “jumbled” perspectives, flattened palettes and strongly delineated patterning.
The linocut version of “Moonlight over the Third Reich” was acquired by Colchester & Ipswich Museums in the 1980s whilst the oil painting was generously gifted to the Ben Uri Museum in St John’s Wood, London by Colin’s widow, Pat in 2009.
Two Flavours of Cubism
The Cubist movement emerged in 1908 and lasted into well into the 1920’s. During that time two distinct forms of Cubism developed. The Tate website defines the two movements in its section of Art Terms:
Analytical cubism ran from 1908–12. Its artworks look more severe and are made up of an interweaving of planes and lines in muted tones of blacks, greys and ochres.
Synthetic cubism is the later phase of cubism, generally considered to date from about 1912 to 1914, and characterised by simpler shapes and brighter colours.
Synthetic cubist works also often include collaged real elements such as newspapers. The inclusion of real objects directly in art was the start of one of the most important ideas in modern art.
And if you want to try Cubism yourself …
Below is a link to a 4-minute tutorial by the talented Aaron Wemer who skilfully illustrates many of the ideas that infuse Cubism, whilst producing a wonderful, analytical cubist drawing.
https://youtu.be/V15rXg1nJ6w
by Josh Cole | Jul 10, 2019 | Ipswich, Social Realism
Social Realism & the Art of Colin Moss ARCA
Colin Moss was a social realist [who] applied firm draughtsmanship and the forceful vision of European expressionism to the docks and terraces of his native Ipswich. There he drew and painted scenes of ordinary life – men in the pub, women eating sandwiches in the park or bending on doorsteps to pick up milk. “I draw working-class people because they are more interesting than middle-class people,” he said. “I have no political allegiances.”
Ian Collins – The Guardian (January 2006)
Colin Moss, “Over the Garden Fence”, 1947
Colin’s passion for social realism dated back to his student days at the Royal College of Art. His 1936 painting, Hunger Marches, was part of his Diploma show in 1937. Based on the 1936 march to London by the unemployed men of Jarrow, Colin’s painting captures the dignity of the men, stoically walking through the rain in their capes.
Colin Moss, “Hunger Marchers”, 1936
His unconventional decision to paint the men as they were seen from behind, emphasised their upright determination as a body of humanity rather than as a collection of individuals. This was a device which would become something of a trade mark in several of Colin’s future work. Even though it is easy to draw some sort of political message out of his work, Colin never once joined a political organisation. His party neutrality meant that people could view his work as a document of post war life; rather than as party propaganda.
Colin Moss, “Uphill Workers”, 1955
Amongst the artistic community in 1930’s Britain there was an intent to show ordinary people doing ordinary things (often referred to as “kitchen-sink” art) and this fascination with the “everyday” became an essential part of Colin’s artistic drive.
Colin Moss, “London Pub Scene”, 1939
Returning to Ipswich after the war he was struck by how much the town resembled a Coronation Street style northern conurbation with little houses around the middle of the town and enormous pubs. In his own words “It was a very Arnold Bennett kind of town”. Post war Ipswich was one that was gritty and tough with rationing still a feature well into the 50s and the majority of the working men employed in heavy industry. Colin’s hostility to sensationalism, gave his work a much more relatable edge as when people would view his work they could see their own experiences reflected in his work.
For more information about “Window Cleaner” 1955, click here.
Post-war Ipswich’s industrial heritage included names that were widely known in Britain and across the world. Engineering companies such as Ransomes, Sims & Jeffries, Ransomes & Rapier and Cranes exported goods around the globe and employed generations of Ipswich workers. Colin’s 1950 ink and gouache drawing “Ipswich Cyclists” captures three workmates cycling home in the dark from work. One man leans across to chat to his fellow cyclists and the headlamps of the three bikes glow in the gloom. Interestingly, men on bikes appear quite frequently in Colin’s work as this was the main means of transport for workers before mass affordable cars. In fact, during the 50s, Ipswich was supposed to have more bicycles per head of population than any other town in the country!
For more information about “Ipswich Cyclists” 1950, click here.
Long hours working hard in the dust and heat at the Ipswich based Ransomes Sims & Jefferies engineering plant was the way of life for thousands of locals. The sound of the Ransomes’ bull horn would summon the men to the RSJ works, which, until the 1960s was on a vast site around Duke Street and Ipswich Dock. “The Bull” kept time, not only for staff of RSJ, but others all around town, including children in the local schools. Despite the above companies dominating life within the town, nowadays the industrial scene in Ipswich is a shell of what it is with most of the factories themselves being demolished.
As well as the industrial side of life, Colin also drew and painted domestic scenes – a woman hanging out washing or brushing the front step, his mother rolling out pastry. Each image a snapshot of a life from a bygone age but which captivates the eye, and the heart, with its “mundane” humanity.
Colin Moss “The Artist’s Mother Making Pastry” 1962
Colin’s kitchen-sink realism was just one strand of his extraordinarily multi-faceted career but possibly was the work that was closest to Colin Moss the man. And his interest in the lives of ordinary people carried on throughout his career in art. His in interest in the regular meant that he could portray life on the streets without the condescension that so many artists seem to do; and this ultimately makes his work so much more poignant.
From the artist’s sketchbook 1995
“As an artist Colin drew and painted what he saw around him. His work functions not only as great art but also as a valuable social document about what life was like in Ipswich and across the country from the late 1940s until his death in December 2005. His portraits of workers leaving the Ransomes & Rapier factory, prostitutes on street corners, old women walking to the shops, laden with bags are an important part of Moss’s artistic legacy to the town.”
Andrew Clarke – Arts Editor at East Anglian Daily Times
Colin Moss “On the Streets, Then & Now” 1992
by Trood Sore | May 19, 2019 | Colin Moss, Drawing
Having been out of fashion and overlooked for several decades, perhaps not by artists but certainly by art schools and art dealers, drawing is once more being celebrated for its role at the heart of artistic practice.
Drawing is what makes art “tick”. It “includes three and a half quarters of the content of painting…drawing contains everything, except the hue” declared Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. In other words, its importance cannot be overstressed. This weekend’s Draw Art Fair at the Saatchi Gallery in London is the first of its kind in the UK. Dedicated to modern and contemporary art, its aim is to encourage people to look at drawings “as more than pencil on paper”. And to ask the question “what is drawing in the digital age?”, says the Fair’s strategic director Jill Silverman van Coenegratchts.
“Less like a shopping mall, more like a museum”
Although the focus is on drawing, exhibitors were able to include related sculptures, paintings, photos, videos, providing the drawings were 70% of their offering. Undoubtedly, the 50 odd galleries were there to sell but the fair was intended to be more like a curated event. Jill Silverman van Coenegratchts “[the aim is] to create a space that feels less like a shopping mall, more like a museum”.
Draw Art Fair certainly offers a comprehensive look at drawing in all its aspects. The works of modern masters like Matisse, Kandinsky, Cocteau, Picasso, Moore are featured alongside contemporary artists such as Irene Lees. Lees extraordinary hand-written, researched “artwork-essays” are certainly like nothing I have seen before. Click here to view them on the Candida Stevens gallery website.
Draw Art Fair also features performance events such as Harald Smykla’s Movie Protocols – pictographic shorthand notation of films (utterly fabulous in my opinion!) and Simon Heijdens’s laser driven Water Drawings.
And alongside the individual gallery offerings, exhibits from international collections including an exhibition of drawings and sculptures by Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Noguchi brought to my mind the work of local Suffolk sculptor Bernard Reynolds, who was also an accomplished artist and draughtsman.
Colin Moss’s own views on the importance of drawing came from his rigorous art school training in the 1930s. Then, students covered life and antique drawing, figure composition and measured perspective. The demanding Board of Education Drawing Exam was, for Colin, “a wonderful sort of basic grammar [and] was the basis of everything I’ve ever done since” (see below).
And this belief in the primacy of drawing was passed onto his students:
Here’s to next year?
So let’s hope the Saatchi Gallery’s Drawing Art Fair is not a one-off and that drawing is back in the limelight, where it belongs. For those unable to get to the fair this weekend, all the work is being shown on Artsy. To find all the related info and articles, click here. And do read Laura Cumming’s in-depth article from April’s Guardian on the absolute enduring joy of drawing.
