‘Sleeping Mannequin’ (2014) is from a series of paintings by Anthony Christian that began in the late 1970s. It was in 1976 that the artist returned to London with “Mr Frank”, a 200-year-old articulated mannequin that he had found in Paris. While for a short time Mr Frank served the intended purpose of a stand-in sitter, before long his role was proving far more significant – becoming the true subject, the limbs upon which Christian would swathe the drapery which he had become so obsessed with perfecting.
