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Lot Essay
‘[Flanagan’s hares] don’t symbolise life, they live it’ – P. Levy
‘I did see a hare and was most impressed by its gait. I was travelling from Sussex to Cornwall and this hare was running just beyond the hedge … [it] was coursing along, and rather leaping, so that was it, a hare, a leaping hare’ – B. Flanagan
Towering over three metres in height, Barry Flanagan’s Hare and Bell of 1988 is a monumental ode to two of his most important subjects. Balanced on the pinnacle of a gigantic bell, the hare soars into the void, its limbs outstretched in joyful exuberance. With its dynamic form and long, lithe gait, it was the hare that defined Flanagan’s earliest experiments with bronze casting in the late 1970s, and subsequently became a constant in his oeuvre. Inspired by a sighting of the creature bounding across the Sussex Downs, Flanagan was fascinated not only by the animal’s fluid anatomy, but also by its rich mythological associations. In 1979 he encountered the book The Leaping Hare by George Ewart Evans and David Thompson, which outlined the numerous historical connotations of the hare: from immortality and fertility in Chinese and ancient Egyptian cultures, to deception, trickery, cleverness and triumph. The bell, by contrast, was for Flanagan a symbol of steadfast solidity: a pillar of stability and harmony. As Clarrie Wallis has written, ‘Bells mark the measured passage of time and the course of life, they call to a settled community within earshot of the tower, church or town hall. This is in stark contrast to the madcap, ever-ranging hare who knows no fixed community’ (C. Wallis, ‘The business is in the making’, in Barry Flanagan: Early Works 1965-1982, exh. cat., Tate Britain, London, 2011, p. 33). Combining the two forms, Hare and Bell captures the dichotomy between freedom and regulation that defines human existence. Acquired by the Fitermans over twenty years ago, further editions of the work have been included in outdoor solo exhibitions at Grant Park, Chicago and Park Avenue, New York, as well as in Flanagan’s 2006 retrospective at the Dublin City Gallery.
Frequently modelled on poses enacted by his eldest daughter Samantha, Flanagan’s hares have an extraordinary, almost human presence. As the artist explains, ‘Thematically the choice of the hare is really quite a rich and expressive sort of model ... if you consider what conveys situation and meaning and feeling in a human figure, the range of expression is in fact far more limited than the device of investing an animal – a hare especially – with the attributes of a human being’ (B. Flanagan, quoted in Barry Flanagan. Sculpture and Drawing, exh. cat., Kunstausstellung der Ruhrfestspiele, Recklinghausen, 2002, p. 31). Wallis has further observed that by casting the hare as a metamorphic shape-shifter – a surrogate for human form – Flanagan establishes the creature as a metaphor for his own elusive character. On a broader level, perhaps, the hare becomes a signifier for the rich diversity of human emotion and experience. As Paul Levy has written, ‘the existentialist action makes us free, and nothing is more free, vital, spontaneous and alive – from Aesop’s hare outrun by the tortoise to Bugs Bunny – than a capering hare. In France and most of Central Europe, it is the hare that lays eggs at Easter and so promises renewal. In fact, Flanagan’s hares do not carry much of this historic symbolic freight; they simply frolic freely and expressively. They don’t symbolise life, they live it.’ (Paul Levy, ‘Joy of Sculpture,’ in Barry Flanagan: Linear Sculptures in Bronze and Stone Carvings, exh. cat. Waddington Galleries, 2004).
‘I did see a hare and was most impressed by its gait. I was travelling from Sussex to Cornwall and this hare was running just beyond the hedge … [it] was coursing along, and rather leaping, so that was it, a hare, a leaping hare’ – B. Flanagan
Towering over three metres in height, Barry Flanagan’s Hare and Bell of 1988 is a monumental ode to two of his most important subjects. Balanced on the pinnacle of a gigantic bell, the hare soars into the void, its limbs outstretched in joyful exuberance. With its dynamic form and long, lithe gait, it was the hare that defined Flanagan’s earliest experiments with bronze casting in the late 1970s, and subsequently became a constant in his oeuvre. Inspired by a sighting of the creature bounding across the Sussex Downs, Flanagan was fascinated not only by the animal’s fluid anatomy, but also by its rich mythological associations. In 1979 he encountered the book The Leaping Hare by George Ewart Evans and David Thompson, which outlined the numerous historical connotations of the hare: from immortality and fertility in Chinese and ancient Egyptian cultures, to deception, trickery, cleverness and triumph. The bell, by contrast, was for Flanagan a symbol of steadfast solidity: a pillar of stability and harmony. As Clarrie Wallis has written, ‘Bells mark the measured passage of time and the course of life, they call to a settled community within earshot of the tower, church or town hall. This is in stark contrast to the madcap, ever-ranging hare who knows no fixed community’ (C. Wallis, ‘The business is in the making’, in Barry Flanagan: Early Works 1965-1982, exh. cat., Tate Britain, London, 2011, p. 33). Combining the two forms, Hare and Bell captures the dichotomy between freedom and regulation that defines human existence. Acquired by the Fitermans over twenty years ago, further editions of the work have been included in outdoor solo exhibitions at Grant Park, Chicago and Park Avenue, New York, as well as in Flanagan’s 2006 retrospective at the Dublin City Gallery.
Frequently modelled on poses enacted by his eldest daughter Samantha, Flanagan’s hares have an extraordinary, almost human presence. As the artist explains, ‘Thematically the choice of the hare is really quite a rich and expressive sort of model ... if you consider what conveys situation and meaning and feeling in a human figure, the range of expression is in fact far more limited than the device of investing an animal – a hare especially – with the attributes of a human being’ (B. Flanagan, quoted in Barry Flanagan. Sculpture and Drawing, exh. cat., Kunstausstellung der Ruhrfestspiele, Recklinghausen, 2002, p. 31). Wallis has further observed that by casting the hare as a metamorphic shape-shifter – a surrogate for human form – Flanagan establishes the creature as a metaphor for his own elusive character. On a broader level, perhaps, the hare becomes a signifier for the rich diversity of human emotion and experience. As Paul Levy has written, ‘the existentialist action makes us free, and nothing is more free, vital, spontaneous and alive – from Aesop’s hare outrun by the tortoise to Bugs Bunny – than a capering hare. In France and most of Central Europe, it is the hare that lays eggs at Easter and so promises renewal. In fact, Flanagan’s hares do not carry much of this historic symbolic freight; they simply frolic freely and expressively. They don’t symbolise life, they live it.’ (Paul Levy, ‘Joy of Sculpture,’ in Barry Flanagan: Linear Sculptures in Bronze and Stone Carvings, exh. cat. Waddington Galleries, 2004).