Allen Jones, R.A. (b. 1937)

Marco Livingstone comments that 'The 'stage' paintings [to which this work belongs] can be taken at a superficial level as depictions of a musical revue, but the theatricality has a more profound function in declaring that the subject should be interpreted in emblematic rather than illustrational terms. The gestures of the artist in paint, like those of the performer in manipulating her anatomy, are crucial evidence of the synthesis of deliberation and spontaneity involved in the creative act' (see exhibition catalogue, Allen Jones, Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, 1979, no. 48).