Girl without a Face (large version)

Details

Kenneth Armitage, R.A. (1916-2002)
Girl without a Face (large version)
signed with initials and numbered 'KA 0/4' (on the back of the base)
bronze with a dark brown patina
65½ in. (166.4 cm.)
Conceived in 1958-9.

Provenance

with Galleria Annunciata, Milan, where purchased by the present owner in the 1960s.

Literature

Exhibition catalogue, Kenneth Armitage, London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1959, p. 12.
N. Lynton, Kenneth Armitage, London, 1962, p. 36.
T. Woollcombe (ed.), Kenneth Armitage Life and Work, Much Hadham, 1997, p. 144, no. KA85, another cast illustrated p. 49.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

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.

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