At the Seahouse – A Severed hand

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Downing Street

In this print, Patrick Procktor depicts a topless male figure lying out in the sun on the floorboards of what looks like a beach cabin, next to the ocean. Working with a foreshortened perspective, the artist captures the sprawl of the man’s body, including a severed hand nearby.

Procktor came to prominence in the 1960s with dynamic, abstract paintings of the male nude, before establishing himself as one of the leading watercolourists of his generation from the 1970s onwards. He often worked with aquatint to transform his watercolours into prints. Drawing from his time as an art therapist working with paralysed patients, Procktor’s depictions of male nudes were often deformed. He commented: ‘I came to gradually accept their physical deformities [...] in my paintings I want to convey the feeling that such distortions, far from being grotesque, are part of life and therefore acceptable’. Procktor’s watercolour portrait of his friend and fellow artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman (c. 1965–68) also features a severed hand.

Places

Subjects

sea, hand, boy, house

Materials & Techniques

etching, aquatint

Artist

Patrick Procktor (1936 - 2003)

Title

At the Seahouse – A Severed hand

Portfolio Title

Artists' Choice

Edition

45/48

Date

1987

Medium

Etching and aquatint

Dimensions

height: 30.60 cm, width: 30.20 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from the Royal College of Art, November 2007

Inscription

below image: 45/48 / Patrick Procktor

Provenance

Royal College of Art

GAC number

18161/36