Oil on canvas. 8 x 6in. (20.3 x 15.25cm.) Signed and dated: ‘Colquhoun/31’ upper right. Inscribed verso. Provenance Sold by The Parkin Gallery, London, at the 1977 exhibition. John Parry. Bruton Knowles, Cheltenham, 19 May 2003, lot 209a as Head – Self Portrait, ill. col. Private collection. Exhibited London, Leva Gallery, 1974, no. 2. London, Parkin Gallery, 1977, no. 5, ill. b/w front cover of cat. ?? London, Parkin Gallery, 1985, no. 16, as Self-portrait - Nude. London, Unit Gallery, 2021. St Ives, Tate St Ives, 2025, ill. col. Literature Colquhoun, TR Magazine, 1979, vol 2 no. 1, ill. b/w p. 102. Ratcliffe, 2007, ill. b/w pl. 76. The sitter has the sharp features and rather bulging eyes that are found in many of Colquhoun’s paintings of women during the late twenties and early thirties (e.g. Judith and Holofernes, 1929, Death of the Virgin, 1931). A previous owner, John Parry, was a Gloucestershire entrepreneur. He may possibly be identified with the John Parry whom Colquhoun knew in Hampstead in the early 1950s and who founded the Indian Music Club. A photograph of members of the club, including Colquhoun and Parry, appeared in the Hampstead News, 18 February 1954. According to the auctioneer at the Parry sale in 2003, when the painting was catalogued as Head, the invoice from the Parkin Gallery gives the work as Head – Self Portrait, the name it was exhibited under at the Parkin Gallery in 1985. This is confusing, as although a work was exhibited in the 1985 exhibition, catalogued as Self-portrait – nude, it seems unlikely to be this work which was already in a private collection and always referred to in previous appearances simply as Head. The invoice also states that the work was exhibited at Cheltenham in 1936 and at the 1976 Newlyn retrospective. If so, it was ex-catalogue on each occasion. The present owner confirms that the inscription on the reverse makes no mention of a self-portrait. References to this work occur in Colquhoun’s hand at several places in the Tate archives, and at no point is it referred to as anything other than Head, the name used in the Leva and first Parkin shows. Cartoon for a painting of a nude (1931) (Sotheby’s studio sale, 24 April 1985, lot 539 ill b/w in cat) has the same model, the identical pose and the same background. Given the small size of the present work, one may propose that it started life as a full-length nude study but was later cut down for reasons unknown.