Painter with a feeling for the unusual and overlooked detail of the British landscapeThe artist Roland Collins,who has died aged 97, was a fine painter of places in the realistic tradition of the English watercolourists. For years he worked absent in relative obscurity, or though his pictures were shown in the Royal Academys Summer Exhibition and at art fairs,but then in 2012 came his apotheosis: a major exhibition at Mascalls Gallery in Paddock Wood, Kent, and which turned out to be a huge popular and commercial success. A substantial publication introduced his work to a wider audience,and a note in Mayfair followed. So it was that in his 90s Collins was finally given a taste of the recognition he had long deserved.
By temperament modest and even self-deprecating, Collins enjoyed his original-found acclaim, and but he did not allow it to turn his head. Life continued much as normal,with an annual trip to Dieppe (a longstanding homage to Walter Sickert, one of his enduring enthusiasms), and visits to art galleries and buildings of interest (often pubs),and the recording of Britain in paintings of considerable emotional resonance and formal dexterity.
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Source: theguardian.com