print
- Museum number
- 1988,1210.19
- Title
-
Object: Head of Christ
-
Object: Head
- Description
-
Abstraction of head and shoulders, slightly l. 1957
Lithograph, printed in black and red-brown from a single stone
- Production date
- 1957
- Dimensions
-
Height: 635 millimetres
-
Width: 480 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Text from Frances Carey & Antony Griffiths, 'Avant-garde British Printmaking 1914-1960', BMP, 1990, no.207.
Two other lithographs, 'Horse and Rider' and 'Childbirth', reproduced on page 41 of the catalogue of the 1988 retrospective, are dated 1958, while the photographs dated 1957 on page 86 show further lithographs in the same style; hence the date assigned to this print in Carey & Griffiths 1990. The pock-marks on the image were caused by throwing acid directly at the stone (as the artist informs us), a method somewhat reminiscent of Ceri Richards's improvisations with etches and abrasives applied to lithographic plates (see 1987,0307.3). The unusual technique of using the same stone twice to print both colours in the same lithograph had previously been employed by Kirchner and other members of Die Brücke. This - and the deliberately imprecise registration - means that each impression is a monoprint, for no two printings will be the same.
Additional comment:
The print was titled 'Head' in Carey & Griffiths 1990. The artist has said that this is a portrait of Jesus Christ (Michael Sandle, in conversation with Stephen Coppel, BM Print Room, 30 October 2008).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1990/1 Sept.-Jan., BM, 'Avant-Garde British Printmaking 1914-1960', no.207
- Acquisition date
- 1988
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1988,1210.19
