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Dame Elisabeth Frink R.A. (British, 1930-1993) Cock 63.5 cm. (25 in.) high (Conceived in 1961) image 1
Dame Elisabeth Frink R.A. (British, 1930-1993) Cock 63.5 cm. (25 in.) high (Conceived in 1961) image 2
Lot 36AR

Dame Elisabeth Frink R.A.
(British, 1930-1993)
Cock 63.5 cm. (25 in.) high

13 June 2018, 15:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £37,500 inc. premium

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Dame Elisabeth Frink R.A. (British, 1930-1993)

Cock
signed and numbered 'Frink 9/9' (on the base)
bronze with a black patina
63.5 cm. (25 in.) high
Conceived in 1961

Footnotes

Provenance
The Artist, from whom purchased by the present owners in the 1960s
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
New York, Bertha Shaeffer Gallery, Elisabeth Frink, 30 October-18 November 1961, cat.no.6 (another cast)
London, Waddington Galleries, Elisabeth Frink, 11 October-4 November 1972 (another cast)
London, Royal Academy of Arts, Elisabeth Frink, Sculpture and Drawings 1952-1984, 8 February-24 March 1985, cat.no.19 (another cast)
Washington, The National Museum for Women in the Arts, Elisabeth Frink: Sculpture and Drawings, 1950-1990, 1990 (another cast)

Literature
Jill Wilder, Elisabeth Frink Sculpture, Catalogue Raisonné, Harpvale, Sailsbury, 1984, p.152-53, cat.no.274 (ill.b&w, another cast)
Annette Ratusniak, Elisabeth Frink, Catalogue Raisonné of Sculpture 1947-93, Lund Humphries, London, 2013, p.77, cat.no.FCR91 (col.ill., another cast)

During her student days at the Chelsea School of Art in the early 1950s, Dame Elisabeth Frink was tutored by Bernard Meadows (1915-2005). At this time a prevalent theme in his oeuvre was the cockerel, and throughout the decade Meadows would regularly produce various bronzes of this domesticated bird. It is no surprise therefore that from 1956 onwards Frink produced a handful of sculptures using her own interpretation of both the hen and cockerel. Some showed the birds prostrate and moribund whilst the present work, apparently the largest of the group and executed in 1961, depicts the bird standing upright.

Additional information

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