Thirty years after her death, the first ever exhibition dedicated to Elisabeth Frink’s time in Dorset will showcase over 80 sculptures, drawings and prints at Dorset Museum, including the working plasters that informed the final bronze sculptures that have never been on public display before.
One of the most celebrated sculptors of recent times – the first female sculptor to be elected as a Royal Academician (1973) – Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993) produced over 400 sculptures throughout her illustrious career, a significant part of which was produced at her Woolland studio in Dorset between 1976 and 1993.
As part of this new exhibition, her Dorset studio will be recreated featuring her tools and the working plasters that formed the basis of some of her most well-known bronze sculptures, giving visitors a unique opportunity to step inside and see how one of Britain’s foremost artists worked.
As well as understanding her artistic process, visitors will get a chance to explore the influence of her private Dorset life, with a selection of personal possessions on display including letters and photographs.
The dying wishes of her son, Lin Jammet, were that the entire Frink Estate and Archive be given to the nation, ensuring that Frink’s vision of sharing her artwork within the public sphere was achieved. This generosity resulted in a significant cultural gift to 12 public museums across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, with Dorset Museum receiving more than 300 works in 2020, making it one of the largest public collections of Frinks’ work. The Frink Estate gifted 31 bronze sculptures, more than 100 prints and drawings along with several original plaster sculptures, studio tools and equipment.
Works in A View from Within will be drawn from this collection, as well as from the Frink Archive at the Dorset History Centre, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and The Ingram Collection of Modern British and Contemporary Art. They will show the breadth of Frink’s subject matter and mastery of different techniques, from works that have been seen by millions in public, to those she privately pursued.
A fascination with the human form characterises a lot of her art, and Frink was particularly celebrated for her rendering of the male physique in bronze. The exhibition will include Frink’s response to the then-recent discovery of two life-size Greek bronzes near the Italian coast with her sculpture Riace III (1988), inspired by the visual concept of the warriors as well as the scholarly commentary which designated them as ‘thuggish’. Her own versions demonstrate her mastery of movement and muscle in a figure that stands over 2 meters tall.
Frink shared her Dorset home with her husband Alex Csáky, and they populated the space with paintings and sculpture. Now in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Seated Man (1986) will return to Dorset, where it once used to be on display by her swimming pool for smaller audiences during the many parties they hosted. The extensive grounds of Woolland helped Frink work in natural light, across all seasons, and was also a place where she could frame both her individual and group sculptures.
The natural world was important to Frink, especially the relationships between those that populated it. Animals would routinely be her subjects, both in sculpture such as with Small Standing Dog (1991), and printmaking with Little Owl (1977) and Blue Horse Head (1988). Frink was well known for her fascination with the form of horses and the spiritual properties they possessed. One of the last sculptures that she ever completed, Standing Horse (1993), was finished at Woolland only weeks before her death from cancer and will be included in the exhibition.
Other work that she produced during her illness offers an insight into her own spirituality. Green Man (1992) was inspired by the book of the same name by poet William Anderson, which looked at ideas of regeneration and healing through nature. Frink was raised in the Catholic tradition, and although she professed ambivalence to organised religion during her life, her sculptures reflect a broad knowledge of religious ideas and thought. Walking Madonna (1981) is a rare study of a female body by Frink, which casts Mary in movement, striding with strength despite the grief that clearly consumes her face. It is one of several of Frink’s sculptures that has been located at places of worship or nature during the last few decades.
Political themes also emerged when Frink paid homage to those that had died for their beliefs with the Dorset Martyrs (1983), a public commission to commemorate the Catholics that had been persecuted in the 16th and 17th centuries. Other works of this nature on display include Tribute III (1975) which highlighted the suffering of those in the Algerian War, and a watercolour Running Man (1976) where Frink positioned the figure as ‘fugitive’.
Although primarily known for her sculptures, Frink also mastered many techniques such as printmaking, lithography and etching which the exhibition will spotlight. She worked with major printmaking studios to create book illustrations such as in The Children of the Gods and The Complete Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece, demonstrating the influence that poetry and history had her on her output.
These works from her time at Woolland, along with personal artefacts such as paintings by her friends, photographs, and other items, will be brought together in the crucial setting of Dorset. The exhibition will highlight the intimate connection between nature and humanity that Frink sought to discover, and the spiritual outcomes of a legacy that continues to endure to this day.
Elizabeth Selby, Director of Collections and Public Engagement at Dorset Museum, said: “Elisabeth Frink was an extraordinary artist who explored what it meant to be human through her work. This exhibition will portray Frink in a more intimate light, revealing her inner world and the major themes she explored in her sculpture, prints and drawings. We are thrilled to be able to display more of the works we acquired from the Elisabeth Frink Estate in 2020, and explore Frink’s connections with Dorset, where she lived and worked from 1976 until her death in 1993.”
Elisabeth Frink: A View from Within is curated by Lucy Johnston, Exhibition Manager at Dorset Museum and Annette Ratuszniak, former Curator of the Elisabeth Frink Estate. Research assistance has been provided by Pippa Davies.
Executive Director Claire Dixon, who joined the museum this summer said “The museum was transformed by a multi-million-pound extension, but we now need to engage with enough visitors to ensure its survival, as the museum has struggled to recover from the impact of the pandemic and more recent cost of living crisis. Exhibitions like this form a crucial part of my vision for a sustainable future for the museum, encouraging repeat visits and providing access to exceptional collections and stories that relate to Dorset but also have wider connections that make them relevant to all.”
The exhibition is sponsored by Duke’s Fine Art Auctioneer’s. The exhibition is generously supported by the Arts Council England NPO scheme through the Wessex Museums Partnership. Other funders include JP Marland Trust, the Henry Moore Foundation, the Finnis Scott Foundation and the Fine Family Foundation.
Elisabeth Frink working on the Dorset Martyr group, 1985. D-FRK/1/10/7/2/6 © Anthony Marshall/Courtesy of Dorset History Centre. Artist copyright in image kindly approved by Tully and Bree Jammet.
Elisabeth Frink on Bulbarrow Hill, Dorset, c.1970. D-FRK/2/1/13/2/5 B_360 Courtesy of Dorset History Centre.
This article was originally published on 27/09/23