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.
The Ed Sheeran: Made in Suffolk Legacy Auction has grown out of the popular exhibition about Ed Sheeran which was shown in Ipswich 2019-2020. Ed’s parents, John and Imogen Sheeran, were keen for the exhibition project to leave a lasting legacy for Suffolk and we are delighted to be providing a piece of Colin’s work for the auction.
All of the proceeds from the auction are being donated to Zest who work with young adults aged 14+ with incurable illnesses and to GeeWizz who will develop a new playground at Thomas Wolsey Ormiston Academy in Ipswich, for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Please do join other collectors of Colin Moss’s work by bidding for this striking, original charcoal drawing, “The Artist at 80”, generously donated by the artist’s widow.
“Gossips, Ipswich” 1959 (oil on canvas)
Colin Moss completed the oil painting “Gossips, Ipswich” in 1959 but destroyed the painting soon after it was finished, apparently discouraged by someone’s dislike of it. The only record of the painting is a photograph of the artist, alongside the work, taken in Ipswich Art School. In later life, he deeply regretted destroying it.
Colin Moss, photographed in Ipswich Art alongside his painting “Gossips, Ipswich” (1959) oil on canvas
The drawing “The Artist at 80”, completed in 1994 (the year he turned 80), was inspired by that earlier photograph but now, rather poignantly, with him as an old man.
Bramford Road
“Gossips, Ipswich” was painted whilst Colin was living in lodgings in Bramford Road, Ipswich. He shared the house with Miss Jolly, the landlady, and her two unmarried brothers.
“I had my own lounge and bedroom, and lived there for about thirteen years, by which time I was gradually getting integrated into Ipswich society [having been demobbed in 1947], but not with much ease.”
Undoubtedly, Bramford Road marked an unhappy period in Colin’s life but it did prove to be a wonderful source of inspiration for many drawings and paintings.
Scenes from Bramford Road, Ipswich late 1940s to 1960
As Andrew Clarke (Arts Editor of the East Anglian Daily Times) commented in an article in 2010,
“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 …”.
Lot 119 – Colin Moss ARCA “The Artist at 80” (1994) charcoal on paper
The lot also includes a 2-hour Colin Moss-inspired walking art tour around Ipswich with curator Emma Roodhouse, date to be agreed.
“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”.
“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.”
“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…”
“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)
“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.”
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.
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.
“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.”
“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.”
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)
When Colin returned to Ipswich in 1947, he found a town still recovering from the effects of the war. “In those days I always felt that it was like a town from the north that had somehow slipped down a couple of hundred miles and got here!It was a very Arnold Bennett kind of town.” Colin Moss: Life Observed.
Bramford Road in the early 1950s (Photo David Kindred)
During those early years in Ipswich, Colin often felt very lonely and isolated “because I was divorced when I came out of the army … and Ipswich is not a town where you make friends easily.”
Bramford Road, Ipswich at Night (c 1950)
Orwell Lodge
Colin found lodgings at Orwell Lodge, 233 Bramford Road, on the corner of Tower Mill Road, opposite the Bramford Road post office. He shared the house with Miss Jolly, the landlady, and her two unmarried brothers. “I had my own lounge and bedroom, and lived there for about thirteen years, by which time I was gradually getting integrated into Ipswich society, but not with much ease.”
Bramford Road marked an unhappy period in Colin’s life. It did though prove to be a wonderful source of inspiration for many drawings and paintings. As Andrew Clarke (Arts Editor of the East Anglian Daily Times) commented in an article in 2010, “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 …”.
Bramford Road Today
In the mid-1990s, after a gap of more than 30 years, Colin decided to go back and visit Orwell Lodge. The house was now derelict and in a sad state of disrepair, as his painting below shows. The week after Colin had returned to Orwell Lodge, the house was sold. The house was then quickly demolished and replaced with a modern, three-storey block of flats.
Orwell Lodge, Bramford Lane (1995)
The block of modern flats that now stand at 233 Bramford Road Photography – Michael Jolly
“The one I used all through my working career was the Arboretum, opposite the art school… that was the pub which all the people who worked there used. In those days, pubs weren’t like they are now … the best food you could get in a pub was a pork pie and a packet of crisps!” Colin Moss: Life Observed
The Arboretum Bar, 1950 (1981)
Linocut
All of Life is Here
The clientele of the Arboretum in Ipswich, Suffolk was a mix of different characters. An opera singer who used to sing for the pub during the evening. Ipswich Art School lecturers and working men. And Ipswich character “Jock the Tramp”. Jock would normally either be wearing all his clothes at once or would have them around his waist. Regardless of this, he would always have a piece of string instead of a belt to hold his trousers up.
Many of the art school staff would go straight to the Arboretum during lunch or after the day had ended. Colin’s order would always be a glass of sweet white wine. When going to the pub, the staff would try and avoid the gaze of the Head of the Art School whose office overlooked the pub’s entrance.
Cold Comfort
In the 1950s the Arboretum was rather short on comfort. Every time the landlord (one Leslie Ward according to Suffolk CAMRA) would bring a bag of coal in for the “tortoise stove”, the whole pub would cheer as it was frequently quite cold!
Dating back to Victorian times, the Arboretum pub has been a part of Ipswich life for well over 150 years. It “was named after the arboretum that was designed in 1851 as a place of quiet recreation in nearby Christchurch Park” (Susan Gardiner “Ipswich Pubs”). Renamed as “The Arbor House” in 2016, it has a growing reputation as an excellent gastropub.
“The one I used all through my working career was the Arboretum, opposite the art school… that was the pub which all the people who worked there used. In those days, pubs weren’t like they are now … the best food you could get in a pub was a pork pie and a packet of crisps!”
