Peter CollisPETER COLLIS was a painter of landscapes and still lifes whose artistic vision was best realised in his small-scale work.
He was 82 when he died. Collis was once described as “Ireland’s Cézanne” and this description was echoed by the Scottish critic John Griffiths when he wrote: “One constant line of influence in his landscapes is that deriving from Cézanne through Vlaminck, though the analysis is never so obsessive in the one, nor the colour so brooding as in the other.”
Aidan Dunne in this newspaper noted that the similarities to Cézanne in Collis’s work include the building-block method of constructing compositions, and deference to the picture plane.
“But he [Collis] goes in for stronger tonal contrasts, and he clearly has an expressionist inclination that he indulges to varying degrees from picture to picture.”
Collis’s still lifes are equally French in character. Pieces of fruit, plates, bottles and jars are depicted in luminous colours against a muted background. The objects are heavily delineated and the tilted perspective is reminiscent of post-impressionism.
He acknowledged the influence of Cézanne, but was by no means a slave to it. Collis was a prolific painter who never tired of returning to a theme, as though dissatisfied with his initial efforts and anxious to improve on them.
He thought long and hard before releasing a painting for exhibition and only did so when he was completely satisfied with it.
South Dublin and Wicklow provided the settings for many of his landscapes, while other work was based on studies made in Connemara, west Cork and Donegal.
He was born in London in 1929, the son of Herbert and Phyllis Collis. He studied at Epsom College of Art and Design from 1947 to 1952 and later worked in the petroleum industry. Within a few years of moving to Ireland from Surrey in 1969 he became a regular exhibitor at the Royal Hibernian Academy annual exhibition.
From the outset his work consistently attracted favourable reviews. In 1971 his was one of the works of “charm and merit” at the RHA exhibition highlighted by The Irish Times. Four years later Brian Fallon wrote: “On a small scale he is very good indeed.”
He exhibited in numerous group shows.
In her review of a show at the Arts Club in 1979, Harriet Cooke welcomed his emergence from “all-encompassing mists with a lively landscape”. She was taken by the “clear blue [sky] with one puffy white cloud, green foliage and a red and yellow cottage”, which resulted in a picture that was “simple but charming”.
A solo show at the Image gallery later that year sold out.
Elected an associate member of the RHA in 1990, he became a full member in 1993. He served as RHA treasurer from 1994 to 1998, and was a member of the annual exhibition selection committee. He was conferred with senior membership of the academy in 2002.
He had solo exhibitions at the Emmet, Wyvern and Solomon galleries in Dublin, and in galleries throughout Ireland. He also exhibited at the Royal Academy and Royal Society of Portrait Painters.
Works by him are held in many public collections, including Aer Rianta, AIB, Bord na Móna, Irish Management Institute, UCD and VHI.
His paintings have been purchased by collectors from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Germany, the UK and US.
His friend and fellow painter John Coyle said he brought a fresh eye to Irish landscape painting; lacking the historical or territorial baggage of many Irish people, he saw the landscape for what it was along with its physical and poetic possibilities.
A Dublin art dealer in 2000 described him as one of Ireland’s “major seniors”, an artist whose work was a safe investment, costing thousands but less than tens-of-thousands.
At the RHA annual exhibition in 2008 three of his five works were sold, even though overall sales were down. His last solo exhibition in Ireland was at the Peppercannister gallery, Dublin, in 2010. A retrospective exhibition was held at the John Martin gallery in London earlier this year.
He was a three-time award winner at the Claremorris open exhibition (1982, 1990 and 1992), won the Irish Pensions Landscape prize at the Oireachtas exhibition in 1983 and received the James Adam Salesroom Award at the 1999 RHA exhibition.
He is remembered as a charming, gentle and unfailingly courteous man.
His wife Anne and daughters Vanessa, Mandy and Kate survive him; his son David and daughter Gail predeceased him.
Peter Collis: born November 16th, 1929; died April 18th, 2012