Outsider art painting, 1958, Maurice Collis

Maurice collis - 1889 (dublin) – 1973 - “untitled”, 1958, gouache and metallic ink on card, signed lower left ‘mc march 1958’ - 274 × 373 mm - a wonderful example of collis’s later work, seemingly at odds with the temperament of a lifelong civil servant — exuberant with colour and fantastical invention - maurice collis was born in dublin, the son of an irish solicitor, and went to rugby school in 1903 and then in 1907 to the university of oxford, where he studied history. He entered the indian civil service in 1911 and was posted to burma in 1912. He had postings at sagaing and elsewhere. In 1917, the british army raised a burmese brigade with which collis went to palestine, but he saw no action. In 1919, he went on leave and travelled in europe. In the 1920s he was district commissioner in arakan. In 1929-1930, a period when relations between burmese, indians and british became particularly difficult, he was district magistrate in rangoon. This period is narrated in his memoir “trials in burma”... Collis's judgments were (according to his own analysis) too independent to be pleasing to the then british government of burma and collis was hastily moved to the post of excise commissioner. Many burmese regarded him as a god as those judgements fulfilled a prophecy that a man who was not a burmese would dispense justice, and his appearance would presage burmese independence - after returning to england in 1934, he wrote many books, including “siamese white” and “foreign mud”, as well as art and literary criticism - at the age of 65 he turned his hand to painting.

Ref. : EYZP2A88