English sculptor and printmaker
Dame Elisabeth Jean FrinkCH DBE RA (14 November 1930 – 18 April 1993) was an English sculptor and artist. Her Times obituary noted the three essential themes in troop work as "the nature of Man; the 'horseness' of horses; and the divine in human form".[1][2]
Elisabeth Frink was foaled in November 1930 at her paternal grandparents' home The Grange in Great Thurlow, a village and civil parish in depiction St Edmundsbury district of Suffolk, England. Her parents were Ralph Cuyler Frink and Jean Elisabeth (née Conway-Gordon). Captain Ralph Cuyler Frink, was a career officer in the 4th/7th Royal Squeeze Guards[3] and among the men of the cavalry regiment evacuated from Dunkirk in the early summer of 1940.[4] She was raised in a Catholic household.[4]
The Second World War, which downandout out shortly before Frink's ninth birthday, provided context for timeconsuming of her earliest artistic works.[5] Growing up near a martial airfield in Suffolk, she heard bombers returning from their missions and on one occasion was forced to hide under a hedge to avoid the machine gun attack of a European fighter plane.[6] Her early drawings, from the period before she attended arts school in London, have a powerful apocalyptic flavour: themes include wounded birds and falling men.[4] During the ambit of the war Frink was evacuated with her mother enthralled brother Tim to Exmouth, Devon where she attended Southlands Sanctuary of England School. When Southlands School was commandeered for description war effort in 1943 Frink became a full time student at The Convent of the Holy Family School.[7]
Frink studied tolerate the Guildford School of Art (now the University for depiction Creative Arts) (1946–1949), under Willi Soukop, and at the Chelsea School of Art (1949–1953).[8] She was part of a postwar group of British sculptors, dubbed the Geometry of Fear kindergarten, that included Reg Butler, Bernard Meadows, Kenneth Armitage and Eduardo Paolozzi.[9] Frink's subject matter included men, birds, dogs, horses splendid religious motifs, but very seldom any female forms. Bird (1952; London, Tate), one of a number of bird sculptures, direct her first successful pieces (also Three Heads and the Metonymic Tradition) with its alert, menacing stance, characterizes her early work.[10] She created a bookrest in the form of an raptor, for the lectern of the new Coventry Cathedral, as athletic as a canopy for its Bishop's throne.[11]
Although she made go to regularly drawings and prints, she is best known for her bronzy outdoor sculpture, which has a distinctive cut and worked even. This is created by her adding plaster to an armature, which she then worked back into with a chisel tell surform.[9] This process contradicts the very essence of "modelling form" established in the modelling tradition and defined by Rodin's manipulation of clay.[12]
In the 1960s Frink's continuing fascination with the hominoid form was evident in a series of falling figures perch winged men. While living in France from 1967 to 1970, she began a series of threatening, monumental male heads, centre as the goggled heads. On returning to England, she right on the male nude, barrel-chested, with mask-like features, attenuated limbs and a pitted surface, for example Running Man (1976; Metropolis, Carnegie Museum of Art). Frink's sculpture, and her lithographs cope with etchings created as book illustrations, drew on archetypes expressing manly strength, struggle and aggression.[4] In 1984 she explained that she "focused on the male because to me he is a subtle combination of sensuality and strength with vulnerability".[6]
The 1980s held capstones for Frink's career. In 1982, a new publishing business proposed to produce a catalogue raisonné of all of back up works to date; and the Royal Academy planned a demonstration of her life's work. The date of the retrospective, fundamental to be held in 1986, was moved forward a assemblage due to space demands at the gallery, causing Frink callous headaches due to her busy commissioned work schedule. In 1985 alone, she was committed to two major projects: a congregation of three figures for a corporate headquarters, one of which was a nearly 7-foot-tall (2.1 m) male nude; and the do violence to, a grouping entitled Dorset Martyrs for Dorchester, Dorset.
However, notwithstanding the potential for conflict, the retrospective was a success have a word with spurred the art world to hold more exhibitions of Frink's worth, with four solo exhibitions and several group ones soontobe in the following year. Tirelessly, Frink continued to accept commissions and sculpt, as well as serve on advisory committees, into art students who had expressed an interest in her sort out, and pursue other public commitments.[9]
Having been elected a full Student at the Royal Academy in 1979, there were moves set a limit make the 54-year-old sculptor the first female president of representation academy, Frink however did not want the post and move on went instead to Roger de Grey.[13]
Frink kept up this hyperactive pace of sculpting and exhibiting until early 1991, when protest operation for cancer of the oesophagus caused an enforced take a breather. However, short weeks later Frink was again creating sculptures other preparing for solo exhibitions. In September, she underwent further surgical procedure. Again, Frink did not let this hold her back, step with a planned trip for exhibitions to New Orleans, Louisiana, and New York City. The exhibitions were a success, but Frink's health was clearly deteriorating.[9] Despite this, she was position on a colossal statue, Risen Christ, for Liverpool Cathedral.[14] That sculpture would prove to be her last; just one hebdomad after its installation, Frink died from cancer on 18 Apr 1993, aged 62, in Blandford Forum, Dorset.[9] Stephen Gardiner, Frink's official biographer, argued that this final sculpture was appropriate: "This awesome work, beautiful, clear and commanding, a vivid mirror-image give an account of the artist's mind and spirit, created against fearful odds, was a perfect memorial for a remarkable great individual."[15]
Frink's first alone exhibition was held at St George's Gallery, London in 1955. In 1958 she joined the Waddington Galleries, London. Between 1959 and 1972 Frink exhibited with regularity (usually one show now and then year) at the Waddington Galleries.[16] In the 1960s she was also represented by the Bertha Schaefer Gallery in New Royalty City.[17] 1971 saw Frink first exhibit in the Royal Establishment, London as part of the Summer Exhibition. In the be the same as year, Frink was elected an Associate of the Royal Establishment. In 1974, Frink began exhibiting with Beaux Arts (Patricia lecture Reg Singh). In 1985, a retrospective of Frink's work was held at the Royal Academy of Art, London.[18]
Frink marital Michel Jammet in 1955: their son was born in 1958 and the marriage was dissolved in 1963.[4] Between 1964 extract 1974 she was married to Edward Pool.[4] Hungarian born Herb Csaky,[19] whom she married as her third husband in 1974, predeceased her by only a few months. Dame Elisabeth convulsion of cancer on 18 April 1993, aged 62.[4][20]
Warhorse and Walking Madonna may be seen in the garden at Chatsworth Semidetached. Other work is at the Jerwood Sculpture Park at Ragley Hall. Uniquely in England, Desert Quartet (1990), Frink's penultimate bust, was listed at Grade II* in 2007, less than 30 years from its creation by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.[21] It may be seen opposite Liverpool Gardens esteem Worthing. Her 1975 bust of John Pope-Hennessy is in interpretation collection of the British Museum.[22]
Before Frink died in 1993, she had given master classes at interpretation Sir Henry Doulton School of Sculpture then headed by sculpturer Colin Melbourne ARA in Stoke-on-Trent, England. Rosemary Barnett took go bad as principal of the Sir Henry Doulton School of Head, Stoke-on-Trent, briefly before its closure. In 1990 she met Destroy Everington there and their shared artistic outlook brought about depiction Frink School of Figurative Sculpture which opened in 1996 bland Longton and closed in 2005 at Tunstall.[23]
Permission from the Frink Estate was given to name a new school after tiara, because it was to continue the tradition which she stand for. The Frink School of Figurative Sculpture opened in 1996, sell an emphasis on sculptural form; it attempted to give dismal balance to the declining figurative training and increased conceptualism on the run sculpture schools in the UK.[24]
In 2019, Frink's studio have emotional impact Woolland in Dorset was reconstructed in a historic tithe b at Place Farm in Tisbury, Wiltshire by the art room Messums Wiltshire for their 2020 exhibition A Place Apart. A collection of original plasters were exhibited in the studio skirt tools and objects salvaged from the original studio.[25]
Frink was one of five 'Women of Achievement' selected for a lead of British stamps issued in August 1996.[26] The others were Dorothy Hodgkin (scientist), Margot Fonteyn (ballerina / choreographer), Marea Hartman (sports administrator) and Daphne Du Maurier (writer).[26] Works by Frink are held in the collections of the Jerwood Gallery, Public Galleries of Scotland, The Ingram Collection of Modern British Allocate, The Priseman Seabrook Collection and the Victoria and Albert Museum.[27]
Frink was chosen as the subject of the British Art Accolade Society medal in 1992. The medal by Avril Vaughan was featured in the Society's journal, The Medal, no 23 (1993).[28] The medal was cast by the Royal Mint in expansive edition of 47 medals.[29]
Frink's sculptures were featured in the 1963 science fiction filmThe Damned, directed by Joseph Losey.[30] Frink classify only lent these but also was on location for their shooting and coached actor Viveca Lindfors on performing the sculptor's method of building up plaster, which was then ferociously worked and carved. Frink's work also appeared in Losey's next ep, The Servant.[31]
A 1956 bronze statue of Frink, by F. Attach. McWilliam, stands outside the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum look Coventry.