Lincoln Townley | Skull Banker | Top Hat Study | 2025

Lincoln Townley (b. 1971)
Skull Banker — Top Hat Study
Ink and marker on paper | 2025 | Original

Of the five Banker studies that arrived with this collection, the Top Hat Study is the most fully realised — a work that has crossed the boundary between preparatory drawing and finished piece, the composition resolved with a confidence and formal authority that makes it a significant work in its own right rather than simply a study for something else. The skull beneath the flat-brimmed top hat, the red tie piercing the black suit, the LT monogram floating in the upper right corner like a brand mark on the most dangerous of products: this is Townley at the full pitch of his visual intelligence.

The top hat is one of the most loaded objects in the history of class and finance — the symbol of Victorian capital, of the plutocrat in caricature, of the figure who accumulates while others labour. Townley places the skull inside it without irony: this is not a joke about bankers but a precise statement about what the accumulation of power costs. The red of the tie drips into the red of the hat brim — the colour of blood and of money, of passion spent in service of systems that have no room for it.

Collected by Al Pacino, Sylvester Stallone, and Robbie Williams. Sold through Sotheby's, Christie's, and Bonhams. Available exclusively through Creed Gallery, Ascot, for collectors across Berkshire, Surrey, and London. Private viewings by appointment.

Original ink and marker on paper
2025
Hand-signed by the artist
LT monogram
Framed
Certificate of Authenticity