Clowns began appearing in George Condo’s oeuvre in the early eighties, a subject matter that showcased the artist’s subversion of portraiture, basing his characters on memory and imagination rather than mere appropriation. Son of Bozo comes from a group of paintings that began in 2006, showing clown-like figures in costumes adorned with multi-coloured polka-dots. Condo’s imaginary, pantomimic ‘Pierrot’ figures derive from the sixteenth century Italian theatre tradition of Commedia dell’Arte, where the stock character of the harlequin was easily recognised by his checked garb and sagacious humour. In Son of Bozo—hailing from the American television sensation ‘Bozo the Clown’ from the forties to sixties—one sees that the innocent Pierrot has been coyly subverted by Condo. Replaced by mismatching eyes and bared teeth, Condo’s Frankenstein departs from his namesake—clown-wig removed to reveal a balding scalp, an ear pierced by a giant push-pin, and make up haphazardly smeared. Indeed, in its marriage and subversion of both the traditional and contemporary, Son of Bozo is an eloquent example of Condo’s ability to depict that which ‘goes between a scream and a smile.’ (George Condo, quoted in Ossian Ward, ‘George Condo: Interview’, Time Out, 6 Feb 2007, reproduced at www.timeout.com).