Etching on printed paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Art Fund
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/cecil-collins-930" aria-label="More by Cecil Collins" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Cecil Collins</a>
Head
Bequeathed by Elisabeth Collins, the artist's widow, through the Art Fund 2001
adults
body
head / face
individuals: male
man
people
portraits
<p>This head and shoulder portrait has been carefully drawn on to a metal plate with a network of engraved lines. The identity of the sitter is not known but it bears a slight resemblance to the artist. The meticulous detail of this straightforward portrait is characteristic of Collins who experimented with several different print-making processes throughout his lifetime, and created some of his most powerful images by means of etching, lithography and roneo printing. This naturalistic image is unusual for Collins who, pursuing his vision of a world that had existed before industrialisation and mechanisation, created his own version of archetypal figures, such as the Fool and the Angel, to reawaken the inner self. In an essay he titled, <i>The Vision of the Fool, </i>published in 1947, Collins described ‘an enormous decay in spiritual fertility, a society without culture, a winter of human life’ (Keeble, p.73) which could only be prevented by ‘The Saint, the artist, the poet, and the Fool’ who support ‘the existence of a new life ... and the coming of light’ (Keeble, p.81).</p>
paper print etching printed
Untitled [Head]
image: 97 × 75 mm
Bequeathed by Elisabeth Collins, the artist's widow, through the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 2001
<p>This head and shoulder portrait has been carefully drawn on to a metal plate with a network of engraved lines. The identity of the sitter is not known but it bears a slight resemblance to the artist. The meticulous detail of this straightforward portrait is characteristic of Collins who experimented with several different print-making processes throughout his lifetime, and created some of his most powerful images by means of etching, lithography and roneo printing. This naturalistic image is unusual for Collins who, pursuing his vision of a world that had existed before industrialisation and mechanisation, created his own version of archetypal figures, such as the Fool and the Angel, to reawaken the inner self. In an essay he titled, <i>The Vision of the Fool, </i>published in 1947, Collins described ‘an enormous decay in spiritual fertility, a society without culture, a winter of human life’ (Keeble, p.73) which could only be prevented by ‘The Saint, the artist, the poet, and the Fool’ who support ‘the existence of a new life ... and the coming of light’ (Keeble, p.81). 
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<br/><b>Further reading:</b>
<br/>Richard Morphet, <i>The Prints of Cecil Collins, </i>London 1981
<br/>William Anderson, <i>Cecil Collins: The Quest for the Great Happiness, </i>London 1988
<br/>Judith Collins, <i>Cecil Collins: A Retrospective Exhibition, </i>exhibition catalogue,<i> </i>Tate Gallery, London 1989
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<br/>Heather Birchall
<br/>September 2002
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Summary
2009-03-04T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
adults body head / face individuals: male man people portraits