Cecil Collins (artist)


James Henry Cecil Collins MBE was an English painter and printmaker, originally associated with the Surrealist movement.

Life and works

From 1951 to 1975 he taught at the Central School of Art. Later, one of his pupils was Ginger Gilmour.
Collins' style in centered around pagan and early christian imagery in many of his works. The figure of the fool was an important one as well in his vision of the world and art, describing it as "an idealistic figure" pushing back against the "mechanic jungle of the contemporary world", representing "the poetic imagination of life, as inexplicable as the essence of life itself".
Collins was awarded an MBE in June 1979.
A retrospective exhibition of his prints was held at the Tate Gallery in 1981. A retrospective of his paintings took place in 1989. He was buried on the western side of Highgate Cemetery.
His widow Elisabeth Collins died in 2000 and, in 2008, 250 of Collins' paintings worth £1 million were given to museums and galleries in the UK.
In honour of the centenary of his birth, an exhibition of Collins' work took place at Tate Britain in Autumn 2008.

Exhibitions