Barry Flanagan, R.A.

Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, Zürich, where acquired by the present owner in September 2007

Recklinghausen, Kunstausstellung der Ruhrfestspiele, Barry Flanagan: Plastik und Zeichnung, 5 May - 14 July 2002 (another cast)

Nice, Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain (Nice), Barry Flanagan: Sculpture et Dessin, 6 December 2002 - 25 May 2003(another cast)

Paris, Galerie Lelong, Barry Flanagan, 15 January - 13 March 2004 (another cast)

Enrique Juncosa (ed.), Mel Gooding and Bruce Arnold, Barry Flanagan: Sculpture 1965-2005, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2006, illustrated p. 135 (another cast)

Executed in 2001, in the final years of his career, Barry Flanagan’s Accompanied is a remarkable example of his mature body of work, taking on his characteristically whimsical style while returning to one of his most beloved motifs. Of course, this is referring to the hares which are dynamically posed atop two bifurcating architectonic plinths.

Since seeing a hare running on the Sussex downs in the late 1970s, Flanagan has continually engaged with this theme, believing that his anthropomorphic hares display a greater sense of expression than those of a human: “The ears [of a hare] are really able to convey far more than a squint in an eye of a figure, or a grimace on the face of a model.” (Barry Flanagan in conversation with Judith Bumpus in: Exh. Cat., London, Tate Gallery, Barry Flanagan: Prints 1970-1983, 1986, p. 15). While Flanagan believed hares provided his artistic vernacular with a greater sense of articulation, the motif of the hare is also rich in symbolism, having been the subject of mythology and folklore across cultures and eras.

What makes Flanagan’s sculpture so fascinating, however, is the tension created by contrasting these very natural, curved forms with the rigidity of line that makes up their architectural bases. Symmetry, order, and stability define the human world of the sky-scraper, while the hares take on an unstable and dynamic stance. Even the medium of the statue, composed of cold, rigid, enduring metal is at odds with the warmth, flexibility, and fleeting nature of the hares.

At odds with typical representations of hares boxing against one other, Flanagan has reordered this idea to depict his hares fighting alongside each other, transforming the sculpture from one of conflict into one of harmony, giving interpretation to his title, Accompanied.