Cecil Collins, was an individualist who, like William Blake, favoured symbolic and mystical subjects. He began drawing his native Devon landscape at an early age, studying at Plymouth School of Art from 1923 to 1927 and at the Royal College of Art, London, from 1927 to 1931, in both cases on a scholarship. His student work, was essentially naturalistic, until in the early 1930s he began to be influenced by Klee, Picasso and briefly by European Surrealism. His first solo exhibition was held at the Bloomsbury Gallery, London, in 1935, and in 1936 he participated in the International Surrealist Exhibition, London. He soon, however, forswore any formal allegiance to the Surrealist movement, thereafter remaining a somewhat isolated and solitary figure within the British art world, although he is often labelled a Neo-Romantic. Archetypal images of the poet, the angel and the Fool occur repeatedly in his work.
His achievements were recognised by a retrospective of his prints at the Tate Gallery in 1981, and later a retrospective of paintings and drawings in 1989, just three weeks before he died.
Collins was an eccentric in his personal life with an idiosyncratic teaching style. During his 58-year marriage his wife was the model for most of his female images. His wife Elisabeth was also a gifted artist but mostly dedicated her life to supporting her husband.