.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Elisabeth Frink's long-lasting fascination with masculine aggression is a theme that she frequently addresses in her art. She represents this aggression as sometimes human, sometimes bestial, or more frequently a strange mixture of the two. Edwin Mullins notes 'they are all variations on a theme - the dominant male. He is aggressive, mindless, physical and predatory' (E. Mullins, The Art of Elisabeh Frink, London, 1972, p. 1).
Frink's works that address this topic represent a female view of maleness. This sets her sculpture a little apart from the work of those rather older contemporaries with whom she was associated during the 1950s and early 1960s. This was the generation following Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth that became internationally known as the first British School of Sculpture. Other prominent members were Lynn Chadwick, Bernard Meadows, Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, Edouardo Paolozzi and Anthony Caro. Frink was a good deal younger that they and she was a woman. Her early work stylistically owed much to theirs but the aggressiveness of her sculpture was subtly different. In nature and in viewpoint it differed because it was, so to speak, an observed aggressiveness: it was a female view of the male beast. This female view was really one of fascination, implying a certain detachment. As her work progressed these salutary notes of detachment grew louder and more distinct. She became increasingly an observer, and from this position she drew strength (E. Mullins, op. cit. p. 1).
From the late 1940s, through the 50s and early 60s, warriors, birdmen, assassins and dying kings all were subjects of Frink's art. In 1967 she moved to the south of France, near the Camargue, where she was to stay for six years. Cut off from her British roots and thrown back on her own resources, she continued to develop her ideas. France was preoccupied with the war in Algeria and later with the student revolution. References to the Algerian soldiers and French traffic police began to infiltrate her work (B. Robertson, Elisabeth Frink Sculpture Catalogue Raisonné, Salisbury, 1984, p.61). Her previous male figures were replaced by large portrait heads and slim striding figures. They were frequently depicted with their eyes hidden behind shining goggles creating an impression of impenetrable menace. In conversation with Bryan Robertson, Frink said 'the goggle heads became for me a symbol of evil and the destruction in North Africa and, in the end, everywhere' (B. Robertson, op. cit., p. 38).
Frink's works that address this topic represent a female view of maleness. This sets her sculpture a little apart from the work of those rather older contemporaries with whom she was associated during the 1950s and early 1960s. This was the generation following Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth that became internationally known as the first British School of Sculpture. Other prominent members were Lynn Chadwick, Bernard Meadows, Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, Edouardo Paolozzi and Anthony Caro. Frink was a good deal younger that they and she was a woman. Her early work stylistically owed much to theirs but the aggressiveness of her sculpture was subtly different. In nature and in viewpoint it differed because it was, so to speak, an observed aggressiveness: it was a female view of the male beast. This female view was really one of fascination, implying a certain detachment. As her work progressed these salutary notes of detachment grew louder and more distinct. She became increasingly an observer, and from this position she drew strength (E. Mullins, op. cit. p. 1).
From the late 1940s, through the 50s and early 60s, warriors, birdmen, assassins and dying kings all were subjects of Frink's art. In 1967 she moved to the south of France, near the Camargue, where she was to stay for six years. Cut off from her British roots and thrown back on her own resources, she continued to develop her ideas. France was preoccupied with the war in Algeria and later with the student revolution. References to the Algerian soldiers and French traffic police began to infiltrate her work (B. Robertson, Elisabeth Frink Sculpture Catalogue Raisonné, Salisbury, 1984, p.61). Her previous male figures were replaced by large portrait heads and slim striding figures. They were frequently depicted with their eyes hidden behind shining goggles creating an impression of impenetrable menace. In conversation with Bryan Robertson, Frink said 'the goggle heads became for me a symbol of evil and the destruction in North Africa and, in the end, everywhere' (B. Robertson, op. cit., p. 38).