- 28
Barry Flanagan, R.A.
Description
- Barry Flanagan, R.A.
- Thinker On Rock
- stamped with Artist's monogram, numbered AC ½ /8 and foundry mark
- bronze
- height (including base): 189cm.; 74½in.
- Conceived in 1996, the present work is an Artist's cast from the edition of 8, plus 2 artist's casts.
Provenance
Exhibited
Condition
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
The 1980s were a period of intense artistic activity and critical success for Barry Flanagan, beginning in 1982 when he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale. In the years that followed his artistic language was to mature and evolve, centring on the predominant theme of the hare, a subject that he had first been drawn to the previous decade. It was George Ewart Evans’ 1972 book The Leaping Hare which set the sculptor on the path of the hare; a theme which continued to dominate the artist’s work for the rest of his life. Evans’ book was an anthropological study of the hare, combining accounts of legends from many different countries and cultures, together with superstitions and mythologies all of which fed Flanagan’s fierce appetite for the theme.
The hare has taken many guises in Flanagan’s sculpture – assertive, pensive, leaping and mysterious – and with its anthropomorphic qualities it has become a much loved motif. It’s incarnation as a modern day ‘thinker’ is one of the sculptor’s most striking visions. A playful take on Rodin’s timeless Le Penseur, or The Thinker (fig.1), as with Flanagan’s best works it succeeds in being both humorous and poignant, and allows the viewer to bring their own interpretation to the works. Cast in bronze, the material that Flanagan believed best suited his vision, the dark, undulating surfaces record what he referred to as the ‘bloom and drama’ of his Rodinesque subject.
The symbolic power of the hare is explicit in the present work. As a human thinker, Thinker on Rock would be far more limited but as a hare, the work allows for a multitude of anthropomorphic and imaginative projections, for, as Flanagan recalled ‘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’ (quoted in Enrique Juncosa, Barry Flanagan Sculpture 1965-2005, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2006, p.65).