Atelier 9 is the site for visual artist Guy Colwell. While best known to a world audience for his influential comic books Inner City Romance and Doll, this site is devoted to aspects of Guy Colwell’s fine art including canvas painting, murals and miniatures.
    Born in 1945, Colwell was graduating from crayons to oil paints by the age of eight. When he authored his first comic book in 1972, he had developed his painting skills for over 20 years. While best known for comic books, Guy Colwell has always viewed these pop culture pen and ink stories as a sideline; and occasional diversion out of economic necessity from the main flow of his life work, painting. But Colwell continues to do some comic book work. You will find a preview of his unpublished story In Fox's Forest now posted on this site. We hope you enjoy it and that you stay around for a view of the paintings as well.
    Over a so far 50 year career as a painter, Guy Colwell’s art has followed several different tracks. He started with a strong base of early classical training from his highly talented mother and excellent high school teachers. But the influence of modern, nonrepresentational art became quite strong during the two years of art school he completed and for several years thereafter. But his work as an antiwar activist and time spent in prison for draft refusal in the Vietnam era brought out a strong interest in social realism/social commentary. This became the main track for a quarter of a century and supported a deepening of classical discipline.
    For a time, Colwell worked as a graphic artist at Rip Off Press in the Sierra Foothills and on his comic book series Doll. The beauty of the high mountains and river canyons drew from him a reawakened interest in impressionism, nature art and abstract experimentation. This parallel track became almost dominant in the late 80’s but eventually reconverged with the main through-line of realism in the 90’s. This new synthesis inspired a variety of surrealist experiments mixing nature art and social realism. These pictures of wild animals in human environments are well represented in this site’s surrealist page and may be Colwell’s best work ever.
    The selection of pictures herein offers a broad overview of paintings completed since 2000. This site should provide a clear picture of Guy Colwell’s work at this point in a long, productive and ongoing career. Your comments are welcome.
    Please go to this site’s links page or Google the name Guy Colwell for further information. Opportunities to purchase small works on paper, mainly relating to Colwell’s comic books, through Heritage Auctions can also be accessed through the links page. Thank you for your interest.

Our e-mail address is info@atelier9.com