Current exhibitions

One Self: The Creative Life of Colin Self

29 March 2025 - 21 September 2025
Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery
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One Self: The Creative Life of Colin Self celebrates the boundless creative spirit of an artist whose dedication to the act of making spans over six decades. Encompassing his famous early work as a major figure in the Pop art movement of the 1960s, the exhibition charts his subsequent artistic course, showcasing some of his lesser-known work, with many works on display for the first time.

Born in 1941 in Norfolk, Colin Self has lived a remarkable creative life. He first came to international prominence in the 1960s with powerful works reflecting on the Cold War and nuclear threat. Since then, he has created an extensive body of work which includes painting, drawing, printmaking, collage, sculpture and ceramics.

The first major retrospective of his work in 17 years, One Self: The Creative Life of Colin Self contains over 120 works of art and celebrates the boundless creative spirit of an artist whose rare openness means that art history, literature, mythology, pop culture, nature and found objects all occupy the same space in his imagination.

Self’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 camp. As a young boy he also discovered the paintings of the Norwich School artists on a trip to Norwich Castle – a key moment in his life which sparked a life-long admiration for the landscapes of John Crome (1768-1821) and John Sell Cotman (1782-1842). With this 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.

Giorgia Bottinelli, Curator: “Colin Self is an extraordinary artist and person. His work is original, eclectic and seemingly inexhaustible: the product of a truly boundless imagination. This exhibition is Colin Self’s largest and most comprehensive exhibition to date and presents a wide-ranging selection of exceptional works of art with one thing in common – a sense of Self’s strong social conscience, caustic wit, intelligence, ingenuity and love of life.”

Exhibition credits

The exhibition is generously supported by Arts Council England, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the East Anglia Art Fund.

Thunderbird, 30 April 2019
Colin Self
spray paint, graphite crayon and pencil on cardboard Tick Tock Tea packaging

/ Current exhibitions / One Self: The Creative Life of Colin Self

One Self: The Creative Life of Colin Self

Exhibition credits

Free Admission

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