Biography

Painter, draughtsman, camoufleur, printmaker and teacher, Colin Moss was born in Ipswich in 1914. He studied at the Plymouth Art School, 1930-1934. He won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, studying under Gilbert Spencer, Charles Mahoney and Percy Horton, 1934-1938. Among his contemporaries was Mervyn Levy, who became a life-long friend. In the same year, he completed mural paintings for the British pavilion at the New York World Fair. During the war, he was a camouflage designer to the Ministry of Home Security, a position he was to hold until active war service took him to the Middle East, where he stayed until 1946. After he was demobbed, he was appointed Senior Lecturer at the Ipswich School of Art and held that position until his retirement in 1979. In 1961, he studied under Kokoschka in Salzburg and, like his teacher, he was an expressionist, using strong rich colours and tones, and forceful brushstrokes. In 1976, Moss was a founder member of ‘Six in Suffolk Group’. He was elected chairman of Ipswich Art Club in 1980 and later became its president. He took part in many mixed shows, including ‘Britain in Watercolour’ at the RWS in 1953, solo exhibitions at Kensington Gallery in 1951, the Zwemmer Gallery in 1955 and many shows in East Anglia.