Despairing head

Albert Tucker was drafted on 14 April 1942 and sent to Wangaratta training camp, where he worked sketching medical diagrams. He was subsequently attached to the Medical Corps for whom he produced drawings of patients with wounds and gas burns. After five months he was sent to Heidelburg Military Hospital where he applied for a job in a psychiatric surgery unit. He discovered the patients from the psychiatric wards depicted in his drawings developed a new iconology. He was at this time influenced by Austrian writer Victor Lowenfeld and his theories which are reflected in Tucker's expressionist vision, in which he projected his inner world into the picture, over-emphasising significant details such as the eyes. 'Despairing head', which is to some extent a self-portrait, is a fantastic example of this period of Tucker's work.