Guy Colwell

Who is Guy Colwell?

Guy Colwell is an American full-time Figurative Social Surrealist painter and occasional underground cartoonist. Although not African-American himself, Colwell's comics often portray blacks in strong roles in stories of life on the streets. His paintings reflect on the human condition, economic inequality, injustice and alienation from the natural world.

Colwell studied art at the California College of Arts and Crafts. After completing two years there, he dropped out to travel and get some life and work experience. When he had worked an almost two-year stint as a sculptor for Mattel and was preparing his return to college, he was arrested for draft refusal and sentenced to two years in Federal Prison at Mcneil Island, Washington state. His experiences there and the period after his release were the genesis of his underground comix series Inner City Romance, begun in 1972. He was financially unable to continue art school as planned but deeply committed to painting as his life work, so was mainly self-taught thereafter. During the turbulent 1970s scene in San Francisco, Colwell worked as an illustrator for the underground paper Good Times and joined the commune that produced this weekly.