BOAR

Gift of the artist to previous owners father.

Born in Thurlow, Suffolk, Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993) trained at Guildford School of Art (1947-49), and at Chelsea School of Art (1949-1952) under Bernard Meadows and Willi Soukop. These studies, combined with visits to Paris that acquainted her with Giacometti and the works of Rodin, culminated in Frink’s first major exhibition at the Beaux Art Gallery in 1952 (from which the Tate Gallery purchased her work Bird), the same year in which she exhibited with the London Group.

While the Frink’s animal lithographs are well known, she would also produce many drawings of animals both dead and alive. This boar drawing was not created for her 1957 Harlow sculpture Boar however, it does highlight the progression and stylistic changes from Frink’s drawings to her sculptures. Boars reoccurred regularly in both Frink’s sculpture, drawings and lithographs from 1957 until the mid-1970s. Annette Ratuszniak commented ‘In 1955 Frink married the architect Michel Jammet, from a French family that lived in Dublin. When travelling around Ireland, Frink saw a lot of Celtic sculpture. Although not drawing directly upon Celtic imagery or myths, she was interested in the psychological relationships between humans and animals.’ The boar symbolises warfare and aggression in Irish mythology, two traits which it could be argued Frink deemed shared by humans. This particular drawing was made in 1967, which was the year she moved to France. In the Camargue Frink would have regularly seen them moving around and there are photographs of Boars in her personal photograph albums from this time.