oil on canvas, signed unframed, as intended overall size 200cm x 275cm Provenance: Depicted on page 171, "Peter Howson" by Robert Heller, first published 2003 by Momentum, London. Note 1: Believed to be the largest work by Howson to be offered at auction. Ex Flowers Gallery, London. Further authenticated by the Peter Howson Studio. Note 2. Aardvark Art Services Ltd will collect this picture from us and deliver to all but the most remote UK mainland addresses for a charge of £100 + vat, although assistance with unloading may be required. Note 3: "Psyche" is an important and monumental example of Peter Howson's work from the early 2000s. Executed on a large scale, he has applied the paint with impressively bold and direct brushwork - this handling helps to charge the work with a sense of vigorous movement and energy. Howson's tutor at the Glasgow School of Art, Sandy Moffat, described the qualities of his student's work ... his touch remains powerful and dramatic; as in his low-life scenes of prostitutes, thieves and dance hall fights...''It is exactly his ability to capture the menacing tone, to penetrate the darker heart of urban humanity, which raises Howson's painting from the ordinary passionless naturalism of academic realists to an entirely different level of creative achievement.'(S. Moffat, New Image Glasgow, exhibition catalogue, Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, 1985). In 2023, Howson was the subject of a major retrospective at the Edinburgh City Art Centre titled When the Apple Ripens: Peter Howson at 65. Howson's work can be found in collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Tate Gallery, London; the British Museum, London; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. His paintings are held in numerous corporate and prestigious private collections around the world.