Head of a Man, c. 1951-53
Oil on board
50.7 x 41.5cm
The Gustav Metzger Foundation
Although the sitters/models in these two portraits remain unidentified, they were probably executed in Bomberg’s classes, which Metzger continued to attend until 1953. He developed ‘a real closeness with Bomberg’, initiating the Borough Bottega exhibiting society (a successor to the earlier, disbanded Borough Group), as a way of supporting Bomberg and disseminating his thinking and practice more widely, and also organised and participated in its first exhibition at the Berkeley Galleries, London, later that same year.
