Graham Sutherland, O.M. (1903-1980)

During the early 1960s Sutherland painted a range of insect pictures, such as Bees, 1963 (private collection) and Mantis, 1963 (Galleria Il Fauno, Turin). As with the present work - in which he has focussed on the mosquito's proboscis or 'trunk' - he enlarges the insect's features and in doing so it takes on a mechanized appearance. The 1962 painting Machine against Black Background (Otto Preminger Collection) reinforces this, and the object depicted in this has been described as 'a hybrid machine-cum-plant form' (R. Alley, exhibition catalogue, Graham Sutherland, London, Tate Gallery, 1982, p. 148).