This showing is the first major retrospective of this remarkable artist in recent memory. Containing over 120 works of art is a substantial undertaking. The show has been masterfully curated by Dr. Giorgia Bottinelli and explores the fearless creative spirit of an artist whose obsession with art-making spans more than six decades.

Born on July 17, 1941, in Rackheath, Norfolk, the first of nine children of Kathleen and Ernest Self, Colin attended the Norwich School of Art and gained a scholarship to study at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He first came to international prominence as a Pop artist in the 1960s with powerful images pointedly reflecting on the Cold War and the imminent existential nuclear threat. Since then, he has created an extensive body of work that includes painting, drawing, printmaking, collage, sculpture, ceramics—oh, and everything else.

Colin’s earliest artistic encounters were with paintings made by Italian prisoners of war interned on the outskirts of Norwich, brought home by his father, a house and sign painter who worked at the internment camp. As a boy, he also discovered the paintings of the Norwich School artists on a trip to Norwich Castle—a vital moment that sparked a lifelong admiration for the works of John Crome (1768-1821) and John Sell Cotman (1782-1842).

With this major exhibition, Self’s artistic life comes full circle, presenting examples of his work from throughout his career next to the galleries where paintings by the Norwich School artists he continues to admire are still on display. The exhibition explores the artist's significant contribution to twentieth-century art, from Pop to landscape, from found objects to ceramics and carved brick.

The show opens with some of Self’s ‘greatest hits’; the extraordinary Hot Dog and Nuclear Bomber print/emboss series from Pop’s 1960s heyday never fail to impress, whilst his extraordinary ability to draw captures the eye and imagination in equal measure.

The show seems extremely timely and topical given the respective global predicaments and uncertainties that seem to characterize a world that is changing daily. For those of us who recall the shadow of the Cold War and the potential horrors of nuclear conflict, Self’s vision, combining impressions of swinging London with chilling harbingers of the apocalypse, is even now sobering in the extreme. Self collides with circumstantial imagery whose consequences are unthinkable even in the hazing meted out to us by the post-pop kaleidoscopic bombardments of Amazon, AI, Deliveroo, Alexa, BYD, Apple, Temu, and TikTok—not to mention the politicians (I told you not to mention the politicians).

There are some fundamental questions here, too, in terms of the artist and his career; one has to ask why it has taken so long to bring together such an extraordinary retrospective. This guy, at his best, and in a creative meritocracy, should have achieved the continuous career recognition of the likes of Hockney or perhaps become the worthy successor to Lichtenstein. But it did not come to pass. Having worked with Self on a show some years ago (One Thousand Drawings, 2012), I know only too well that the answers are as complex as the man himself. Self certainly has an on/off relationship with the art establishment; he is one of the UK's most unpredictable and brilliant artists. He and his work are full of extraordinary contradictions; he is mercurial, passionate, loquacious, and tenacious.

On the one hand, a global superstar; on the other, a local boy through and through—perhaps an early example of think global, act local," or maybe, inversely, think local, act global may be more accurate. Whatever the locus, Self has always had a complex relationship with the London/Los Angeles/New York art scenes, and one cannot help but feel that he has deliberately positioned himself on the margins of an art world he couldn’t bring himself to trust by engaging in periods of self-imposed exile and solitude. He is still here, though, and the best of his work is of enduring significance and does stand the test of time and talent.

In this show, one is captivated by the abundant quality of his landscape paintings, seduced by the stark, inky blackness of his nocturnal city scenes, and mesmerized by the luminous vibrancy and chromatic joy of his more recent Fern series. His prints and collages are masterful and wonderfully inventive, as in ‘The Ploughman’ and the various ‘Bombers’ shows. His ceramics are delectable and quirky, and his sketchbooks are intense and compelling.

The overall impression is of a wonderfully inventive artist who really doesn’t care about perfecting a monotheistic identity a la Giacometti, Pollock, or Riley, tricky of course for the investor/consumer/collector art market, which requires something signature and recognizable. Here is an artist who is happy to be changeable, inconsistent, and experimental, creatively risking everything, courageous and prolific, succeeding and failing, but seemingly never hesitating. His draughtsmanship and imagination surpass the bounds of convergent logic in ‘Humanity Hanging by a Thread’ (1962)—a work that is sixty-three years old; we feel as if it was created yesterday for today. The sense of imminence and mortality, heightened by the disembodied puppet with an external brain attached as an extra-bodily extension.

Colin’s canvases of the last few years, created by spray-painting woodland plants—ferns and rowans, are a breath of fresh air. He named this series The Voltaire Suite after the French satirical novel Candide (1759), which famously concludes, “We must cultivate our garden,” finding contentment in everyday pleasures—a radical message in today’s fractured present.

This is a show that defies linear analysis, and long may it do so. I, for one, am getting a bit weary of trademark techniques and the narrowing of creativity that often comes hand-in-hand with commercial success and gallery representation. For all his failings as an artist whose output might be cited as being erratic, scattergun, knee-jerk, or nomadic, there is something beautifully refreshing, alive, and optimistic about Colin Self’s work. As a viewer, I feel relieved by the lack of calculation, and for once, I don’t feel I’m being hoodwinked by hyperbole, seduced by technology, or dazzled by curatorial compensation.

Self’s talent is raw, honest, touching, flawed, and abundant; above all, I find myself charmed by the fallibility, not the perfection.

Miss this, and you really do miss out.