COLLINS, Cecil.

£675 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Vision of the Fool. First edition, first impression, presentation copy from the author, inscribed on the front free endpaper: "To Alex Comfort with best wishes from Elisabeth and Cecil Collins. September 19th, 1947. Cambridge". A fine provenance: Alex Comfort (1920-2000), physician and writer, achieved international fame with his bestselling The Joy of Sex (1973); he was an early champion of Collins and the author of the first monograph on the artist (1946), as well as working as an editor with the Grey Walls Press."The artistic and intellectual stimuli at Dartington, together with the threat of war, inspired Collins to paint his most famous series of works, based on the image of the Fool, which he began in late 1939. To him the Fool signified 'purity of consciousness', and he gave to his many depictions of the image qualities that were threatened by the Second World War: charm, fun, compassion, and insight... He also published in 1947 his essay The Vision of the Fool, a work that expresses his feelings about the role of the artist (the Fool) in the modern world of war and industrialization" (ODNB).

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