Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930 - 1993)

 

Dame Elisabeth Frink was an English sculptor and printmaker. She studied at the Guildford School of Art from 1947 to 1949 and with Bernard Meadows at the Chelsea School of Art from 1949 to 1953. She was linked with the post-war school of British sculptors, including Reg Butler, Bernard Meadows and Eduardo Paolozzi, though her work is distinguished by her commitment to naturalistic forms and themes. Her range of subjects included men, birds, dogs, horses and religious motifs. She concentrated on bronze outdoor sculpture with a scarred surface created by repeatedly coating an armature with wet plaster: each coating is distressed and broken, eliminating detail and generalizing form. In the 1960s Elisabeth Frink's continuing fascination with flight was evident in a series of falling figures and winged men. While living in France from 1967 to 1970, she began a series of threatening, monumental, goggled male heads. On her return to England, she focused on the male nude, barrel-chested, with mask-like features, attenuated limbs and a pitted surface.

 

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