The present sculpture reflects Turnbull’s interest in totemic African sculpture, which is evident in the stylistic influences and formation of this mask. It is closely modelled on masks he likely admired in the ethnographic section of the British Museum. This sculpture is interesting in that it merges Turnbull’s interest in totemic sculpture that he cultivated in the 1950s with a return to bronze in his later career, when he started to find the fragility of plastics too limiting. Turnbull continued to produce masks throughout his career. The title, Tragic Mask, links it to what Turnbull considered to be the universality of theatre and the theatrical.

Turnbull’s
works are in the public collections of Tate, London; Scottish National Gallery
of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow; Art
Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; The Berardo Collection, Lisbon; National Gallery
of Art, Washington D.C; Art Gallery New South Wales, Sydney; Hirshhorn Museum
and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C; Glasgow Museum
and Art Gallery, Glasgow.

Another
example of Tragic Mask is held at the Tate, London under reference T03272
from 1979.