 Head VI was first exhibited in November 1949 at the Hanover Gallery in London , in a showing organised by one of the artist 's early champions , Erica <unk> . At the time , <unk> was a highly controversial but respected artist , best known for his 1944 Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a <unk> , which made him the <unk> terrible of British art . Head VI drew a mixed reaction from art critics ; John Russell , later <unk> 's biographer , at the time dismissed it as a cross between " an <unk> <unk> of its jaws and an <unk> in <unk> @-@ <unk> who has come to a bad end " . In 1989 Lawrence <unk> wrote that the " shock of the picture , when it was seen with a whole series of heads ... was indescribable . It was everything <unk> . The paradoxical appearance at once of pastiche and <unk> was indeed one of <unk> 's most original <unk> . " Art critic and curator David Sylvester described it as a seminal piece from <unk> 's unusually productive 1949 – 50 period , and one of <unk> 's finest <unk> . 
