Geoffrey Clarke began his pioneering experiments with forged and welded iron in 1950, at a time when many of his contemporaries continued to employ more traditional materials. Along with Reg Butler and Lynn Chadwick, Clarke learnt how to weld on a course held at the British Oxygen Company in 1950.

In 1952 (the year after he created ‘Head’) Clarke was one of the emerging sculptors selected to represent Great Britain at the Venice Biennale. Alongside his contemporaries Reg Butler and Lynn Chadwick, Clarke’s work was described in 1952 by the influential art critic Herbert Read as evoking the ‘geometry of fear’. In this way Clarke’s early works, such as ‘Head’, were to be characterised by their battered or tortured appearance. With its innovative use of iron as material ‘Figure’ radically reframed what figurative sculpture could be in what Read termed ‘Britain’s New Iron Age’ (1953).