Listing Details
Dame Elizabeth Frink CH ,DBE, RA
1930 – 1993
English artist and sculptor Elizabeth Frink was born in Suffolk in 1930. She is internationally acclaimed for her large bronze sculptures and also known for her printmaking. Her father was a career army officer so when World War II broke out in 1939 the family were living on an air force base. Early drawings from this period were of falling men and dead birds, not what you would expect from a young child. As war progressed she was evacuated with her mother and brother to rural Devon.
Frink studied at the Guilford School of Art 1946 – 1949 and at the Chelsea School of Art 1949 – 1953. She majored in sculpture and was part of a postwar group of British sculptors known as “The Geometry of Fear School” . These included Reg Butler, Bernard Meadows , Kenneth Armitage and Eduardo Paolozzi. Frink’s subject matter included men, birds, dogs, horses and religious motifs, but very seldom female forms.
Frink exhibited widely in the UK and also New York. In 1986 the Royal Academy held a retrospective exhibition of her work which received much acclaim. Sadly she developed cancer which despite treatment was to prove terminal. The last work she completed was a colossal statue “Risen Christ” for Liverpool Cathedral.
The work we are selling “Anthony and Cleopatra” is an image of Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon performing for the Royal Shakespare Company in 1982. It is thought Frink also designed the programme for this performance.
Image Dimensions: 590mm W x 800mm H
Framing: Framed
Framed Dimensions: 840mm W x 1060mm H
Edition: 33/175