* PETER HOWSON OBE (SCOTTISH b. 1958), THE PATRIOTS

oil on canvas, signed framed image size 75cm x 60cm, overall size 95cm x 80cm Condition of the picture is good overall, with no visible or known issues. Note: In the late 80s and early 90s, Howson embarked on a thematic exploration of what his biographer Robert Heller describes as his ‘Patriots’: the fascists, the football hooligans, the bully boys of the UK... “People who use brute force for brute ends”. It would go on to become the facet of his work for which he is arguably best known. The brutish and muscular ‘Game Boy’s’ raise their fists in a gesture pitched somewhere between a neo-Nazi salute and the celebratory stance of a football fan or roused member of a street mob. He sports the typical uniform of baseball cap and too-tight t-shirt, a nod of ridicule on Howson’s part, but with sinister “wrist gauntlets that furl out into a threatening combination of football scarf and leather strap”. The figure’s face is contorted into a mask of “swinish hate”, as Heller puts it.