Colin Orchard won the RBA Artist Award and was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 2007. He has exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions, and galleries including David Messum, Medici, Walker Galleries, Ainscough and New Grafton, and in 2015 he held his landmark 80th birthday exhibition here at the New Craftsman. He is included in writer David Buckman's Dictionary of British Artists since 1945, and in Marion Whybrow's era defining book St Ives 1883 - 1993; Portrait of an Art Colony.
From 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company):
Painter and designer, born in Ewell, Surrey, who trained as a typographer and layout artist with The Times newspaper. He joined Letraset in 1962 as art director, from 1972 was a freelance graphic designer and moved to St Ives, Cornwall, in 1983 to develop his painting, which he eventually did full-time. Later mixed exhibitions included Wills Lane Gallery, St Ives; New Grafton and Medici Galleries; RA Summer Exhibitions; and Courcoux & Courcoux, Stockbridge. Had a series of solo shows with Porthmeor Gallery, St Ives, in the 1990s, later ones including The Book Gallery there, 1997. Orchard shared an exhibition at Ainscough Contemporary Art in 2002, showing atmospheric landscapes and figure studies.