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| Louis Le Brocquy Head on a Red Ground 1974 intaglio print Tate Gallery |
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| Ruth Thorne-Thomsen Head and Boat 1983 gelatin silver print Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Karel Appel Big Head 1964 oil on canvas Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
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| Jyoti Bhatt Double Self Portrait 1969 gelatin silver prints Tate Gallery |
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| Brassaï Graffiti ca. 1955 gelatin silver print Tate Gallery |
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| Paul Cézanne Head of the Artist's Son, asleep ca. 1888-89 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Anonymous Designer Maria Callas and Giuseppe di Stefano 1973 poster Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Anonymous Designer Maria Callas and Giuseppe di Stefano 1974 poster Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Richard Cooper Head of Young Woman ca. 1770 drawing Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Emil Nolde Head of Man in Darkness (Self Portrait) 1915 lithograph Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Three Heads ca. 1540 drawing Yale University Art Gallery |
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| Antoine Lafréry (publisher) Actor's Mask (Ancient Rome) at the Vatican ca. 1573 etching Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Henri Laurens Two Heads ca. 1925 wood engraving Yale University Art Gallery |
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| Sidney Nolan Landscape, Miner, Yellow Helmet 1973 screenprint Tate Gallery |
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| Nicholas Monro Cosmic Consciousness 1970 screenprint Tate Gallery |
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| Bruce McClean Spaghetti alle Vongole Twice 1995 screenprint Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
The Mother's Loathing of Balloons
I hate you,
How the children plead
At first sight –
I want, I need,
I hate how nearly
Always I
At first say no,
And then comply.
(Soon, soon
They will grow bored
Clutching your
Umbilical cord) –
Over the moon,
Lighter-than-air,
Should you come home,
They'd cease to care –
Who tugs you through
The front door
On a leash, won't want you
Anymore
And will forget you
On the ceiling –
Admittedly,
A giddy feeling –
Later to find you,
Puckered, small,
Crouching low
Against the wall.
O thin-of-skin
And fit to burst,
You break for her
Who wants you worst.
Your forebear was
The sack of winds,
The boon that gives
And then rescinds,
Containing nothing
But the force
That blows everyone
Off course.
Once possessed,
Your one chore done,
You float like happiness
To the sun,
Untethered afternoon,
Unkind,
Marooning all
You've left behind:
Their tinfoil tears,
Their plastic cries,
Their wheedling
And moot goodbyes,
You shrug them off –
You do not heed –
O loose bloom
With no root
No seed.
–A.E. Stallings (2009)