Kenneth Armitage, R.A. (1916-2002)

The artist comments, 'In 1958-9 I made a piece called Girl without a Face. Instead of a face, there is an empty space under the hat which goes right back to the bronze at the back. And I remember this started because I was looking, as one did every Saturday, at Picture Post, the illustrated magazine with all kinds of excellent topical photographs, published by Teddy Hulton. I remember finding a photograph of a row of models with big hats, and because their faces were partly in shadow I made drawings from the photo and automatically drew a strong shadow under the hat, where the face would have been. It was an odd idea, to have no face' (see T. Woollcombe (ed.), op. cit., pp. 47-50).

Another cast of the present bronze was shown at the Spoleto city sculpture exhibition in 1962.