Barry Flanagan

Waddington Galleries Ltd., London, 1985
Private Collection, United States
Sotheby's New York, May 16, 2002, lot 404
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Exh. Cat., Tokyo, Fuji Television Gallery, Barry Flanagan, 1985, no. 11, n.p., illustrated (ed. no. unknown)
Exh. Cat., Cologne, Museum Ludwig, Europe/Amerika, 1986, no. 49, p. 122, illustrated in color (ed. no. unknown)
Exh. Cat., Newcastle upon Tyne, Laing Art Gallery, Barry Flanagan - A Visual Invitation, 1987, p. 60, illustrated (ed. no. 2)
Exh. Cat., Clemont-Ferrand, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Aspects de la Sculpture Contemporaine, 1994, no. 13, n.p., illustrated (ed. no. unknown) 

“Thematically the choice of the hare is quite a rich and expressive sort of model; the conventions of the cartoon and the investment of human attributes into the animal world is a very well practiced device, in literature and film etc., and is really quite poignant. And on a practical level, if you consider what conveys situation and meaning and feeling in a human figure, the range of expression is in fact far more limited than the device of investing an animal -a hare especially- with the expressive attributes of a human being. The ears, for instance, are really able to convey far more than a squint in an eye of a figure, or grimace on the face of a model.”

- Barry Flanagan, interview with Judith Bumpus, quoted in Barry Flanagan: Prints 1970-1983, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London, 1986, p.15

Instantly recognizable as an example of Barry Flanagan’s celebrated series of hare sculptures, Hare and Vase (Midsummer Song) from 1984 is a playful and richly animated demonstration of the artist’s unique vision. A subject that occupied Flanagan’s imagination for over twenty years, the emblematic animal made its first appearance in his sculptural oeuvre as the Leaping Hare, inspired in 1979 by the sight of a hare running on the Sussex Downs, and stimulated an enduring fascination to which he has often returned. This spirited hare, with its sensitively rendered gestures, transformed into a potter bent over his wheel, epitomizes Flanagan's expressively witty anthropomorphism. Cast in dynamic Rodinesque bronze, Hare and Vase elegantly illustrates Flanagan’s ability to balance traditional and imaginative methods and modes in a singular expression of vitality.