Membrane Maze Head

Details

Michael Ayrton (1921-1975)
Membrane Maze Head
signed and dated 'Michael Ayrton/3.9.64' (lower left)
gouache, ink and collage
16 x 21¾ in. (40.6 x 55.2 cm.)

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Lot Essay

The metaphor of the maze in Greek mythology became a driving force in Ayrton's works. Most important of all was the metaphor of the maze as a prison that offers in its passages and dead ends mere illusions of escape. This symbolic meaning with which the maze was to become endowed was described by Ayrton himself when he said of Daedalus 'He has become any man who during his life builds in and around himself a Maze of Circumstance and experience which, it seems to me, we all do.'

(see introduction to Exhibition catalogue, Michael Ayrton, Maze Maker, Bath, The Victoria Art Gallery, 1984)

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