"Favourite Places become obsessive subject matter"

 

Roland Collins

 

Favourite Places become obsessive subject matter and for over 50 years he has recorded just that. He belongs very much to the style and tradition of his contemporaries Eric Ravilious John Piper and Edward Bawden. The exhibition is by nature nostalgic, but it is also part of the continuity of a series of exhibitions I have put on over nearly twenty-five years devoted to the Cafe Royal, Fitzrovia, the Colony Room, the Gargoyle, Marcel Boulestin and Jacques Emile Blanche. It is people that make places and so it is memories of Dylan Thomas Nina Hamnett, Augustus John, Gaston Berloment, Charlie Allchild and Walter Sickert that take Roland Collins and myself back to the Fitzroy, the French, Mornington Crescent, Dieppe and the Café Suisse. 

 

Roland Collins was born in Kensal Rise, moving to Maida Vale.At 8 he won a Evening News competition to colour in a Poater. Roland Collins was educated at Kilburn Grammar School, whence with the encouragement of the art master Robert Whitmore and the munificence of a grant from the London County Council of £25 a year, he was able to go to the St Martins School of Art, in the Charing Cross Road. This was in a building, since demolished, approached behind a disused burial ground.

 

"As a new boy I had my rubber thrown out of the window by sculptor Leon Underwood in his life class ,and suffered Vivian Pitchforth's strictures on my lack of form. "Pitchy" who became a royal academician -wrote to me later about my painting" "you've got Whitstable just right. You've snapped me up in the general atmosphere." After a year the school was transferred to the former Archbishop Tennyson's school on the site of Hogarth's house in Leicester Square. here we deserted classes to hold protest meetings in the basement against Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and the Baldwin inspired abdication of Edward VIII."

 

Ever since those pre-second -World-War days, Roland Collins became an acute observer of the London and later the Dieppe scene. The Old London as we used to know it has disappeared, and it is with more than nostalgia one is taken back thirty, forty or fifty years. Roland Collins has managed to record the landscape of the time in a way the camera never has. it is not just a case of buildings destroyed by the war and the property developer, but the disappearance of items-all clues to what was a more leisured way of life-like the hand-pushed cardboard box delivery cart-massive but presumably light in weight. the old carriages and stable in Knightsbridge Mews; the Watney's Lion and Shot Tower that became the South Bank Site for the Festival of Britain. We had hope then, and hadn't reckoned with or thought of the prospect of the ugliness of buildings such as the Hayward Gallery on the same site today.

 

For Roland, favourite places became obsessive subject matter. A black and white drawing Thames at Chiswick ,was accepted by the Royal Academy in 1937,and Market Place, Waltham Abbey the following year was chosen by Wyndham Lewis in his Royal Academy selection. In 1939 the R.A. showed Mill on the Cam, Cambridge. St Johns College and Montpelier street, and in 1940 he took his first job in the studio of a then leading advertising agency, the London Press Exchange, and worked for many well-known advertisers.

 

Then came the war. Conscientious Objection and a doubtful lung took him into light agricultural work and briefly to Dartington Hall in Devon and its orchards. The Art Department had closed, but there was a memorable concert in the Great Hall given by two young men before they left for America-Peter Pears, accompanied at the piano by Benjamin Britten.

 

"Back in London, painting places brought its hazards .in Cumberland Terrace, Regents Park, I was taken by a policeman to be questioned at the barracks. My subject was occupied, it seemed, by military police. Months later the painting, which was on paper came back from the War Office pleated in concertina folds. Rudely introduced to Fitzrovia through the bombs of 1940 I took the studio at 29 Percy Street that remained for over forty years a base and a refuge .that year I painted murals for the Akropolis, one of the first Greek restaurants in London and opened in Percy Street by Christos Ktori ,a chef with stais at the White Tower. Unfortunately a bomb in Tottenham Court road did fatal damage to the Parthenon! When the business was transferred to Charlotte Street, the excuse was repeated till this too disappeared in the change to Anemos. Later Christos's son Andrea opened the Grecian Tavern in a Percy street basement and I painted murals on   a theme of Greek vase decoration-and of course, the Parthenon! The fragments of broken plates with which customers showed appreciation of the cabaret performers were sprayed gold. Along with a Nike of Samothrace in a papier mâché everything disappeared with the arrival of the present Japanese restaurant. Alas gone too, yet another Parthenon re-created for a restaurant near Victoria." 

 

1945 

Roland designed, the sleeve for the very first long playing record issued by Decca -Igor Stravinsky's Petroushka

1946 

With a partner bought a gaff rigged yacht Lilian built in Hull in 1902 from a toffee manufacturer in Middlesbrough. On a course set for Burnham on Couch he was towed into Whitby, taken into Grimsby by the lifeboat after grounding on Spurn Head, towed across the Wash to Harwich by the tug Annuity, and nearly sunk on his moorings at Burnham, at last a year later. "An epic voyage."

He sought refreshment at the Central School Life Class with Morris Kestelman. Life Classes in the studio at "29" attracted interested attention from staff at Rowney's expense.

1947

He became a persistent exhibitor at most of London's Art Societies.

1950 

Pastel Society

City of London Art Exhibition

Paddington Art Exhibition

National   Society

1951

Wrote "the Flying Poodle" book for children with photographs by W. Suschitzcky. Harvill Press. Wolfgang Suschitzcky became a famous feature and documentary film cameraman. 

1952

Edited and illustrated a magazine The Young Ballet Dancer for youngsters learning ballet, in association with the Legat School

1953  

London Group

Royal Society of British Artist 

"From 1948-1967 I rode regularly in Hyde Park at first from the Old Berkshire Stables behind Edgware Road where the Water Gardens are now, later from the famous Lilo Blum's near Hyde Park corner that vanished along with St George's Hospital change into being a brand new hotel.

1954 Illustrated with colour lithographs Colour and Pattern in the Home by Noel Carrington (brother of Dora) Batsford. Noel had an office in then same house as Percy Street.

 

"In Coronation year I met Iziz Bidermanas the Lithuanian born French Photographer, here to make Gala Day London and Queens People for the Harvill Press, now part of Collins. In introducing him to less familiar London I too began photographing favourite subjects in black and white. With accompanying articles these appeared in the Lady-a Climber's Guide to the Monument: Hyde Park; Suschitzcky A Chinese Tea Party; the Van Gogh Country -by 27 bus; Dieppe-Channel Surprise Packet.

 

Wartime drinking in Fitzrovia's public houses brought an inevitable meeting with Dylan Thomas in the Wheatsheaf , formally introduced through friends in the BBC Welsh service.

"Dylan was sober and sweetly reasonable .it was lunchtime. Evenings here in its tartan glory and under the influence of Youngers Scotch Ale were inevitably dominated by the loud voice and affected manner of Julian Maclaren-Ross, the short story writer. his silver topped walking stick hooked on a bar, he passed drinks down to Mrs Stewart, an elderly local , who sat at a table with her crossword puzzle and an alarm clock.

 

Air raid notwithstanding she never went home till the bell on the clock rang. Just as inevitably Nina Hamnett came in looking for someone to buy her a drink, though admittedly she was always good value for money!

 

Caught on my spy camera,the tiny Minox. Augustus John and Dorelia arm in arm after visiting their daughter Poppet and Dutchman William Poll, her third husband at their flat in Percy Street. Virginia Woolf's Bloomsbury lingered on in the Fifties in Fitzrovia, and in particular in Percy Street. Saxon Sydney-Turner, contemporary and Cambridge friend of Lyttton Strachey and Maynard Keynes , came in from the attic flat next door to finish his times crossword. Barbara Bagenal Barbara Hiles at the Slade, danced solicitously behind with shopping bags, while Clive Bell retreated briskly across the great divide of Tottenham Court roads. When Saxon left in '55 Duncan Grant sand Vanessa Bell, now a fragile but stately pair took over his flat. When they too went six years later, the emptiness of those rooms was poignantly emphasised by the only evidence of their occupation -a broken oval dish with characteristic decoration by Vanessa and a plate by Duncan. I have them still.

 

Sonia Brownell, blonde beautiful and fresh from a convent came to 29 in 1941 with Augustus John and Cyril Connelly in hot pursuit ,slightly ahead of a clutch of painters who gave the Euston Road a place in art history -William Coldstream ,Rodrigo Moynihan and Claude Rogers. Sonia later moved to a flat on the south side of Percy Street and progressed via Cyril Connelly 's Horizon to shared fame as one of David Plante's "difficult women" and a deathbed marriage to George Orwell. Somewhere in my bookshelves is the Matisse given to me by the girl from the fiction department.

 

1941 framed in his studio door Ben Nicholson and the poet Kathleen Raine, whose meagre room on the second floor was sanctified by one if Ben's white reliefs. satisfied smiles from the pair-they had just been to see the Marx Brothers the big store, and sat through it twice.

Perhaps least known of Bloomsbury 's literary names , Julia Strachey, Lytton's niece, took a flat in Percy Street so that she and her husband Lawrence Gowing, had somewhere to stay when they came to town. After the collapse of their marriage in 1966 Julia pursued a, solitary existence communicating mostly through her typewriter " I must get this off to to the New Yorker" thirty two years had passed since her masterpiece cheerful weather for the Wedding, her health was failing and in a letter to Robert Kee she described herself as an ancient old bag .I gave her a drawing of Brighton Pavilion which, she wrote in a letter to me " Ben Nicholson ( not the painter, but the son of Harold Nicholson and Vita Sackville West) when asked what he thought about it answered

-why-of course-its brilliant"

 

1955 & 1957 

City of London Art exhibition

1960 

Royal Society of Marine Artists

Royal Institute of Oil Painters

1964

Holborn Artists Oil Painting Bankside bought for London Borough of Camden.

Bought Ocean Cottage Whitstable where he spent a happy 21 years.

1966 

Fitzroy Tavern, Charlotte Street.First One Man Show under the benevolent patronage of the landlord, Danny Fitzgerald .in those days a regular customer entered to the sound of his own signature tune played by Bernard , the resident pianist. a local lady ticket collector on the Underground arrived with her escort, I remember,to  "Messing about on the River".

1967 

Royal Society of Marine Artists

Royal Watercolour Society

Britain in Watercolours

Towner Gallery Eastbourne

Hampstead Open Air Art Exhibition

 

"Made a touching discovery in the loft at '29 -the banners, posters and placards of forgotten campaign on behalf of the nine Scottsboro negroes sentenced to death in Alabama for alleged assault on two white girls. The campaign was here by Nancy Cunard in 1933 from her flat on the top floor. Nancy daughter of society hostess Emerald Lady Cunard fought tyranny everywhere and was that year grieving the loss of a friend since childhood .George Moore about whom she an affectionate memoir.

 

In 1970 Fitzrovia was threatened by mass development which would have meant the wholesale destruction of much of its "people live here" character. A meeting of concerned residents in the house of abstract painter Adrian Heath, later R.A. in Charlotte Street resulted in the formation of the Charlotte Street Association, committed to the preservation and enhancement of Fitzrovia's unique qualities. Its first secretary I remained active in the organization till leaving for Padstow three years ago.

 

1987 By 73 Bus to Camden Registry Office, treading reverently in the footsteps of Virginia Stephen and Leonard Woolf ,for marriage to Louise McConduch Ross.(Connie)

 

1988 Illustrators Gallery, Colville Place. One man show under title Favourite Places.

 

1993.  Started to exhibit with Michael Parkin Fine Art The British Art Show. Exhibition shared with 14 Artists in the gallery of the recently refurbished Whiteley's in Queensway.

 

1994 Roland Collins London and Dieppe

 

included in many mixed Exhibitions and Art fairs annually: 20/21 British Art Fair, Works on Paper Fair.