Roland Collins, born on September 17, 1918 and died September 27, 2015.
Roland was an English painter, specialising in watercolours of English architecture.
Unknown for most his lifetime, his work came to prominence after a successful exhibition at Mascalls Gallery, Paddock Wood, Kent in 2012, which led to further exhibitions in Mayfair.
Roland was born on 17 September 17 1918 in Kensal Green, London.
He attended Kilburn Grammar School and studied art at St Martin’s College.
Upon graduation he worked in advertising for the London Press Exchange.
Following World War II, he took ownership of a studio in Fitzrovia, which he used for the remainder of his career.
In the 1960s, he bought a cottage in Whitstable, Kent and painted the shoreline scenery he found there.
Roland work included The Grapes (1936), a view of a pub on Limehouse Reach painted from the River Thames’ point of view, and the illustrations for Charlotte Haldane children’s book “Fifi and Antoine”.
In 1993, he staged a one-man exhibition, “London and Dieppe: A Retrospective”, based on his trips there.
Roland Collins died at age 97 on September 27, 2015.