THE family of a talented artist whose work spanned nearly 70 years are appealing for help in creating an online archive of his work.

Colin Finn, who died recently at the age of 86, had lived in Pembrokeshire for 21 years.

During this time, he was inspired by the local landscape, with his work including Winter Solstice at St Davids (2001).

He exhibited regularly at The White Lion Street Gallery, Tenby and The Carningli Gallery, Newport as well as continuing to send to shows in London.

He produced a series of White Mountain paintings based on the Preseli Mountains and his son Benjamin Finn, a well-known stained-glass artist, has written a poem, Journey To The White Mountain, celebrating this image and the other work of Colin Finn.

Paying tribute to his father, who latterly lived in Lampeter Velfrey, Benjamin said:

His work is lyrical and poetic and has a sense of the mystery and symbolism.

"He often placed a row of objects in the foreground and the recurring symbol of cone and sphere often crop up, which had a particular meaning for the artist.

"He loved the ancient monuments of earlier civilisations of the British Isles and includes them in some of his paintings. He also liked to paint haunting images of houses and follies, often set out of context, in the landscape."

Colin Finn grew up in Kent before his family moved to Birmingham at the start of World War Two.

He went to art college there and on graduating, started a teaching career which took him to various art schools - Birmingham, Coventry, Stourbridge, Oxford, Hull, Liverpool (where he was head of painting), and finally, Maidstone College of Art where he was head of fine art.

He exhibited his own work – mainly abstract – in various shows and galleries including The Serpentine Gallery, London and the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.

A return to landscape painting came in the early 1980s and began a series of paintings of the Kent coast and landscape where he was living at the time. He retired and took up full-time painting in 1988 and moved to Pembrokeshire in 1999.

He is survived by his second wife, Yvonne, and also Andrea, his first wife, together with children Benjamin, Sasha and Chloe.

Interment of his ashes has taken place in the churchyard at Lampeter Velfrey.

The online archive of Colin's work has just been launched and can be found on www.colinfinnartist.com.

His family are requesting anyone who has any paintings to get in touch with them on the contact form with a view to getting a more complete record of his work.