Colin Self

Catalogue entry

P07946 A Letter to Christopher Logue 1980

Xerox print with collage and blue ink 8 3/4 × 11 5/8 (210 × 296), printed by the artist at the Circle Service Station, Norwich, published by the artist
Inscribed ‘Colin Self’ top left and ‘A letter to Christopher Logue 1980’ and ‘4/14’
Purchased from the artist (Grant-in-Aid) 1983

Self met Logue in 1964 and they became friends, maintaining an intermittent correspondence. The artist sent the original of this print to Logue, making some photocopies at the local garage beforehand:

it's ‘down and out’ art. Of (about) the creative activity still coming through in contemporary commercial commodity print media, even when the posh print houses of London dont want to know. ... adding to each individually with postage stamps - linking them to my ‘People's Art’ theories, postage stamps being seen as ‘People's Prints’ with their own market value amongst the people - outside of ‘Fine Art’.

The image is from a saying by Confucius ‘“yes, all life flows on - like a river”’.

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1982-84: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1986

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