Dame Elisabeth Frink, D.B.E., R.A.

Estimate

150,000 - 200,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Dame Elisabeth Frink, D.B.E., R.A.
Running Man
signed and numbered 3/3
bronze with a dark brown patina
height 193cm., 76in.

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy, Elisabeth Frink: Sculpture & Drawings 1952-1984, 8 February - 24 March 1985, no.72, illustrated in the catalogue (another cast).

Literature

Bryan Robertson, Elisabeth Frink: Sculpture Catalogue Raisonné, Harpvale, Salisbury, 1984, no.238, illustrated p.188 (another cast);
Edward Lucie-Smith and Elisabeth Frink, Frink: A Portrait, Bloomsbury, London 1994, illustrated p.51 and between pp.66 and 67.

Catalogue Note

Conceived in 1978 and cast in an edition of 3.

The monumental scale of Running Man combined with his agile, slim limbs presents a powerful celebration of the male body. In contrast to Frink's earlier sculptures of warriors and soldiers such as Warrior (1963) and Assassins I (1963), symbolic of human agression and war, the lithe proportions of Running Man strike a more gentle and harmonious tone. He does not stand for any specific group of people nor vocation, rather he represents the artist's idealised visions of the universal man, running peacefully at will rather than to flee in fear or to pursue with menace.

It is telling that the artist positioned another cast of Running Man in the centre of her own garden in Dorset, literally placing him within the landscape as the ideal model for mankind's symbiotic relationship with nature (see illustrations in B.Robertston, op.cit. pp.87 and 132-133). As such, alongside her compassionate series on the theme of the Horse and Rider (see lots 43 and 44), Running Man is the ultimate affirmation that man can be 'finely tuned to become a formidable combination of strength and sensitivity' (E.Frink quoted in B.Robertson, op.cit, p.65).