Colin Self: Say it with Flowers, The Odyssey/Iliad Suite
Colin Self (born 1941, Rackheath, Norfolk) is one of the key figures of British Pop art. He studied at Norwich School of Art and then at the Slade in London in the early 1960s, where his contemporaries included David Hockney and Peter Blake. Coming of age in the shadow of the Cold War, his early work channelled political anxiety and nuclear paranoia — making him the only British Pop artist to refer explicitly to the Cold War and its threat of annihilation.
Known for his paper collages, Self's work gathers up the detritus of everyday life, train tickets, pizza boxes, stamps, postcards, and reassembles it into new icons of modern consumerist society, from hot dogs to comic-book scenes. Filled with wit and humour, the works can also carry an unexpected atmosphere of violence and threat. His intention was to produce a detailed record of his society, one that, in the event of its destruction, would convey its essential qualities to anyone who came across the work in the future, a form of historical archaeology in which scraps of the present are collected as clues to our times. "Who knows if they owe a little something to Kurt Schwitters," he has said. "When I see his collages I am left wondering who dropped the tram tickets on the street for him to pick up like clues for a detective…"
Suspicious of the commercial art world, Self returned permanently to Norwich in 1965, where his subject matter and technical range have continued to expand across six decades, taking in atmospheric Norfolk landscapes, still lifes and studies of human behaviour, alongside painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and ceramics. His work is held in collections including Tate, the British Council, Pallant House Gallery and Leeds Art Gallery.
In 2025 Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery staged One Self: The Creative Life of Colin Self (29 March – 21 September 2025), his largest and most comprehensive exhibition to date, bringing together more than 120 works and marking his first major retrospective in 17 years. His work was also presented at Frieze Masters later that year. Earlier landmark showings include Tate Modern's The World Goes Pop and International Pop, the touring exhibition seen at the Walker Art Center, Dallas Museum of Art and Philadelphia Museum of Art (2015–2016).
