Tony Bevan Head & Neck Bloody Stitches Painting Postcard

RA*  This is a beautiful undated but modern published official postcard from Londons Royal Academy Of Arts for this historic painting by Tony Bevan of Head & Neck with artist details, dates, dimensions etc & Royal Academy Of Arts logo on reverse being the official souvenir from when exhibited unused and mint. 

During this period Bevan has assimilated various influences (chief among them the character heads of Franz Xavier Messerschmidt) and inflected his representations of the head in different ways. In a text written for Bevans 2006 exhibition at Ben Brown Fine Arts Richard Dyer wrote of how over the years Bevan has gradually isolated the head from the body and that in some of Bevans more recent works the head has become completely flattened, resembling more a two dimensional map, rendered as if the skin had been removed from the skull beneath and laid out like a flattened cartography of the physiognomy, an uncannily floating ÔøΩcorchÔøΩ. This description of the head as map certainly applies to Head and Neck, particularly the straight diagonal line extending from the neck across the head. The face, tilted backwards, the eyes looking down, seems to regard us with disdain, while the head and neck emerge from a torso which here assumes the characteristics of a horizon. In many of Bevans portraits the neck is absent but here it, and its relation to the lower part of the painting, is integral.

This painting was shown in 'Tony Bevan: New Paintings' at his gallery, Ben Brown Fine Arts, in 2008. The painting was loaned to the exhibition by the Royal Academy, which by this time had already accepted it as Bevans Diploma Work, following his election as an RA in 2007.