Barry Flanagan

Forum Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in May 1997

Tokyo, Fujui Television Gallery, Barry Flanagan, October - December 1991, n.p., illustrated (another example exhibited)
Monte Carlo, IIIeme Biennale de Sculpture Montecarlo, 1991 n.p., illustrated in color (another example exhibited)
Montreal, Landau Fine Art, Barry Flanagan, October - December 1992, p. 17, illustrated in color
West Bretton, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, The Names of the Hare: Large Bronze by Barry Flanagan: 1983-1990, June - August 1992, p. 11, illustrated (another example exhibited)
Chicago, Richard Gray Gallery, Barry Flanagan Recent Sculpture, November 1994 - January 1995 (another example exhibited)
New York, Barry Flanagan on Park Avenue, September 1995 - January 1996 (another example exhibited)
London, Serpentine Gallery, Here & Now: British Sculptors at the Serpentine Gallery from 1970 to the Present, June - July 1995, n.p., illustrated (another example exhibited)
Iowa City, University of Iowa Museum of Art, Barry Flanagan: Recent Sculpture, June - July 1995 (another example exhibited)
Chicago, Grant Park, Barry Flanagan: Sculpture in Grant Park, May - September 1996, n.p., illustrated (another example exhibited)
Recklinghausen, Kunstausstellung der Ruhrfestspiele, Barry Flanagan: Plastik und Zeichnung, May - July 2002 (another example exhibited)
Nice, Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, Barry Flanagan: Sculpture et Dessin, December 2002 - May 2003, p. 29, cat. no. 18, illustrated (another example exhibited)
Dublin, Irish Museum of Modern Art and The Dublin City Art Gallery, The Hugh Lane, Barry Flanagan: Sculpture 1965-2005, June - September 2006, p. 196, illustrated (another example exhibited)
London, Royal Academy of Arts, Summer Exhibition, June - August 2010 (another example exhibited)

The Independent, June 14, 1995
Olivier Desgranges, "Virée à Nice," La Gazette de Montpellier, 2002
"Les lièvres de Barry Flanagan," Nice-Matin Magazine, December 2002
La Voix du Luxembourg, January 6, 2003
"Exposition au Mamac: Flanagan, sculpteur non conformiste," Objectif méditerranée, March - April 2003
Liliane Tibbéri, "Il voit des lièvres partout," Tribune Bulletin, March 11, 2003
Victoria Lane, Karyn Stuckey and Judy Vaknin, eds., All This Stuff: Archiving the Artist, Oxfordshire, 2013

This work is in very good and sound condition overall. There are scattered spots of oxidation and evidence of wear to the base which is to be expected of a work installed in an outdoor environment. Please note this work is being offered from the catalogue. Please contact the Contemporary Department should you wish to schedule a viewing of the sculpture in person.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

“Flanagan’s hare is an inspired updating of a charming 19^th Century sculptural subgenre, animal modelling, merged with a story-telling tradition that reached its apogee with Beatrix Potter. But it is also 20^th Century art, and it is not unmindful of a heritage that includes Alberto Giacometti and Alexander Calder as well as such teachers of Flanagan as Anthony Caro and Phillip King. This heritage, in fact, dignifies and deepens the undertaking.” (Richard Flood quoted in: Exh. Cat., Chicago, Richard Gray Gallery, Barry Flanagan: Recent Sculpture, November - January 1995, n.p.)

Barry Flanagan's Hare and Bell encompasses the playfulness and energy of the artist’s iconic style. For Flanagan, who has been a highly influential figure in British sculpture since the late 1960s, the 1980s is considered the mature period of his career. The present lot is an essential work from this time, the decade when Flanagan represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1982 – where his signature hares made one of their first public appearances — and when he enjoyed perhaps his most prolific and successful period. The artist’s sculpture ingeniously mixes fantasy, satire, and realism. It is his response to the Minimalist sculpture of his contemporaries with its severe geometric abstraction. Flanagan has said he can express more about human nature by using a hare than a human figure, because a hare has such expressive potential—in the ears, for example.

Here, Flanagan's iconic hare leaps with vigor through the air, arms and legs outstretched and balanced elegantly on the top of a larger than life bell. Executed in bronze, Hare and Bell is a sophisticated composition that merges slender elongated shapes with the neatly curved form and vital, exuberant energy of the hare. As opposed to Flanagan’s prolific work in stone, sand, and other mediums, his work in bronze is almost always figurative, with the hare as the central figure. Flanagan became fascinated with how the medium of bronze has been used to model animal figures, to convey their physicality, as well as their aura. As such, the artist adds a sense of humor and whimsicality to a tradition so often associated with monuments full of pathos and grandeur. Flanagan's handling of the material is delightfully sly and irreverent.

The iconic simplicity of the hare echoes prehistoric and mystical bronze figurines. The form of the hare also has personal associations for the artist. Flanagan began creating sculptures of hares in the late 1970s, in part because of a memory seeing one running across the Sussex Downs. When asked why it held such appeal, he said, "I find that the hare is a rich and expressive form that can carry the conventions of the cartoon and the attributes of the human into the animal world. So I use the hare as a vehicle to entertain. I abstract from the human figure, choosing the hare to behave as a human occasionally" (Enrique Juncosa, Barry Flanagan Sculpture 1965-2005, Dublin, 2006, p. 65). Through his sculpture, he conveys the animal's boundless energy, fluidity and humor. The hare sculptures are one set of a larger body of work based on animal forms that Flanagan created over his career. In all of these series, and in particular with the hares, Flanagan expressed his interest in merging the commonplace, the imaginary and the fantastic, and drew from the ancient, mythic, archetypal meanings the various animal forms have held for human beings.

Always active, suggesting speed, lightness and grace whilst at the same time filled with good humor, the leaping hare encapsulates the artist’s vision. Whether 19 or 90 inches high, increasingly anthropomorphic, they wrestle, box and dance. Here, with this large sculpture, Flanagan contrasts the supple lines of the animal in motion with the stillness and solidity of a bell base. The present work infuses age-old sculptural tradition with freshness, creative passion and rings in a unique sense of joie de vivre.

Flanagan’s work has been recognized for its two-fold profundity. The first part lies in his inspired ability to summon delight from the sober material of cast bronze, rendering powerless any oxidization through the sheer spiritedness of his subjects. But almost paradoxically, Flanagan’s work inspires deep contemplation, as the hare has influenced a wealth of symbolic, historical, and altogether cultural exploration of its meaning and presence in art. Ultimately Hare and Bell demonstrates Flanagan’s unending quest for unpretentious creation: a work steeped in unconventionality yet bursting with symbolic richness. This accessibility is evidenced by the fact that his beloved public sculptures have been collected and exhibited all over the world.