Dame Elisabeth Frink R.A.

(British, 1930-1993)

Harbinger Bird I 43.8 cm. (17 1/4 in.) high

Footnotes

Provenance
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
New York, Bertha Schaeffer Gallery, Elisabeth Frink, 1961 (another cast)

Literature
S. Tillim, Arts Magazine, December 1961, p.49
Bryan Robertson, Elisabeth Frink, Sculpture: Catalogue Raisonné, Harpvale Press, Salisbury, 1984, cat.no.75, p.153 (ill.b&w., another cast)
Annette Ratuszniak, Elisabeth Frink, Catalogue Raisonné of Sculpture 1947-93, Lund Humphries, London, 2013, cat.no.FCR93, pp.76-77 (ill.b&w., another cast)

Elisabeth Frink has been associated with the 'Geometry of Fear' group, a term coined by Herbert Read in 1952 to describe the work of eight British artists represented in the New Aspects of British Sculpture exhibition at the Venice Biennale of 1952. This original group of artists, which did not contain Frink, exhibited angular, jagged, rough-textured, or spiky work which was seen to reflect the angst, anxiety and guilt of the immediate Post-War period. The influence of the movement can be seen on the work of Frink throughout the 1950s and 60s, with the bird motif playing a key role in her output. The group of birds to which the present work belongs have been described as follows:

'The Harbinger Birds show how Frink worked the plaster very quickly, building up with an almost assemblage-type approach, at times using sections of dried plaster from containers and creating slab-like planes that add menace to these zoomorphic birds that symbolise the foreshadowing of destruction' (Annette Ratuszniak, Elisabeth Frink, Catalogue Raisonné of Sculpture 1947-93, Lund Humphries, London, 2013, p.77)

Other casts from this edition are in the Jerwood Gallery and Salford Museum & Art Gallery collections.