More than half a lifetime ago, I was (for want of a better term) a security guard at the Hayward Gallery for their Thirties exhibition, and one of the items I had to guard was this head of Sir Edwin Lutyens. (Sometimes it’s referred to as a bust.)
I might just about have heard the name Lutyens before I worked at the Hayward, but only just. Nevertheless I loved that head: how could you not? And to be fair it didn’t need much guarding.
My job was by no means a walking job but we weren’t allowed to sit down and so we paced up and down the galleries hour after hour, day after day, as a deterrent.
Walking in galleries can be hard work even when you’re keen to see the exhibition; walking back and forth when you’re just a deterrent is much harder.
I gather that the head belongs to the Victoria and Albert Museum and it incorporates Lutyens’ design for the Viceroy's House in New Delhi, now the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
And then last week I was walking round the Victoria and Albert as a punter not a security guard, there to see the Tropical Modernism exhibition, and there was old man Lutyens again. It felt like meeting an old friend.
Judge for yourself whether it's a good likeness.
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