MOSS, Colin

1914 - 2005

Colin William Moss was born at Ipswich on 30 April 1914, son of William Alfred Moss (1878-1917) and his wife Gertrude Mabel née Turner (10 August 1873-), his father, who was a beer retailer at 26 Cemetery Road, Ipswich, was killed in action at Passchendaele, Belgium on 26 October 1917, aged 39, when Moss and his elder sister were then raised by maternal relatives at 45 Fore Street, Devonport, near Plymouth, where his mother ran a hairdressing salon. Colin studied at Plymouth College of Art 1930-1934 then at the Royal College of Art 1934-1938, under artists such as William Rothenstein (1872-1945), Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) and Barnett Freedman (1901-1958). In 1939, an artist, living at 39 Redcliffe Road, Kensington, London and during the Second World War was engaged in camouflage for the Ministry of Home Security but in 1941, drafted into the Life Guards serving as a captain in the Middle East and after the war continued in the Army Education Corps in Palestine. Always drawing, he made numerous sketches of military life which, more than 30 years later, were to inspire some of his most powerful paintings. After demobilisation he taught at Ipswich School of Art 1947-1979. Moss co-founded the Six in Suffolk Group in 1976. Elected a member of Ipswich Art Club in 1948 but resigned in 1953 owing to the reactionary presidency of Anna Airy and set up the 'New Ipswich Art Group' in 1958 but re-joined Ipswich Art Club in 1961.The Ipswich club sponsored Moss to study under Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) in Salzburg where he was required to produce lightning watercolours of nudes and rewarded with sweets when pleasing the master. For three years from 1980 he served as chairman of Ipswich Art Club, exhibiting from 41 Graham Road, Ipswich in 1977 'Petunia' and another painting the following year and in 1980 exhibited four paintings 'Peasant', 'Farm Worker', 'Two Seated Men' and 'Refugees' and in 1997 as a Life Member exhibited from 10 Westwood Avenue, Ipswich 'Pembroke I'. His first solo show was at Michael Chase's Gallery in 1951 and he exhibited at the Royal Academy also showing regularly in London and East Anglia starting with Britain in Watercolour at the Royal Watercolour Society Gallery in 1953, he was picked out for praise at Zwemmer Gallery and he also had a solo show at Zwemmer Gallery in 1955. His pen & wash 'Askaris at Camp' was exhibited at the centenary exhibition of Ipswich Art Club in 1974. He married at Warwick in 1940, Christine J. Hunt but this ended in divorce and secondly at Ipswich in 1974 Patricia E. Sore (born 1934). Colin William Moss died at 10 Westwood Avenue, Ipswich on 16 December 2005.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from 233 Bramford Road, Ipswich
1955 185 Pheasant
from 173 Brunswick Road, Ipswich
1960 1185 Girl combing her Hair - chalk

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Works by This Artist