Cecil Collins

James Henry Cecil Collins, best known under the name Cecil Collins MBE (23 March 1908 – 4 June 1989) was an English painter and printmaker originally associated with the Surrealist movement.

Collins was born in Plymouth and worked first as a mechanic at a firm based in Devonport. From 1924 to 1927 he attended Plymouth School of Art. In 1927 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art where he won the William Rothenstein Life Drawing Prize.

From 1951 to 1975 he taught at the Central School of Art. Later, one of his pupils was Ginger Gilmour.

Collins was awarded an MBE on 26 June 1979, to be dated 16 June 1979, on the occasion of the celebration of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's birthday.

BBC Radio ran a program about him in 1981 in the Conversations with Artists series, with Edward Lucie-Smith.

A retrospective exhibition of his prints was held at the Tate Gallery in 1981. A retrospective of his paintings took place (before Collins died) in 1989.

His widow Elisabeth died in 2007 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.

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