Oil painting 'The Post Office Tower' by Henry and Joyce Collins, Colchester, 1981. Oil on canvas, pasted onto wood panel, framed. The tower appears central in black and white against an abstracted evening sky. The blues and mauves of the sky evoke radio waves emanating from the tower, in a symmetrical pattern either side. London buildings below are sketched in oranges, blues and mauves. Title in blue centre bottom, signed and dated 'Henry & Joyce Collins. 1981' bottom right.

Henry and Joyce Collins’ vibrant painted portrait shows the Post Office Tower rising tall against an evening sky. The abstracted blues, blacks and mauves of the sky evoke radio waves emanating from the building. Clearly visible are the microwave horns designed to be the ‘backbone’ of the British Cold War communications system, hidden in plain site on the tower’s top. SMG’s Radio Communication collections include a horn from another tower in the network (2013-86).

The Post Office Tower was finished in 1964 as a significant operational component of Britain’s post-war telecommunication modernisation programme and quickly became a symbol of modernity, often associated with Harold Wilson’s ‘white heat of technology’. The Collins’ painting was made at an interesting moment in 1981 the year the Tower was closed to the public, one year after the NatWest Tower replaced it as the tallest building in the UK and three years before privatisation led to its renaming as the British Telecom Tower. It has continued to be one of London’s most iconic buildings, inspiring artists and graphic designers.

The Collins produced this painting as part of a series of panels for the IBM building on Wigmore Street in London, commissioned by architects Ian Langlands and Gordon Bowyer. They did other commercial work for the General Post Office, including submitting designs for stamps in the 1960s. They worked on collaborative projects together for over 60 years, based in Colchester and central to the arts there. They were founding members of the Colchester Art Society in 1946 along with John Nash and Cedric Morris. Henry taught at St. Martins School of Art and Colchester School of Art and Joyce at Colchester and Southend Art Schools. Their first prominent commission was for The Central Office of Information for the Sea and Ships Pavilion as part of the Festival of Britain in 1951. They remain best known for their innovative large-scale concrete murals for public spaces in the 1970s. Pioneering techniques to play with texture and surface, they focused on using this key modern material to make their work ‘a matter of spectator involvement’.