Head III
- Artist: Graham Sutherland OM
- Date: 1953
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 1143 x 883 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is the "Head III" by Graham Sutherland, painted in 1953. The canvas presents a strange, insect‑fossil hybrid that seems to float between animal and abstraction. Sutherland later insisted the figure was not meant to be threatening, yet the same year critic Herbert Read described the work as reflecting the era’s “cosmic anxiety.” The oil is applied with a light, almost feathered brushstroke, giving the creature a translucent, spectral quality. A flat field of striations in the background echoes the veiled vertical lines found in Francis Bacon’s paintings, hinting at a broader dialogue about isolation and existential dread. The piece sits within the post‑war British art context, where artists wrestled with the trauma of the recent past and the uncertainty of the future.
See it in person
Head III is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
