Barry Flanagan RA - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale London Thursday, October 12, 2023 | Phillips

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  • ‘‘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 surrogate or as a vehicle to entertain in a way. The abstract realm that sculpture somehow demands is a very awkward way to work, so I abstract from the human figure, choosing the hare to behave as a human occasionally.’’
    —Barry Flanagan

    Hares are synonymous with Barry Flanagan’s monumental bronze sculptures, where they are either engaged in anthropomorphic activities like cricket, boxing and karate or in their more readily associated positions of leaping and jumping. The subject matter dominated the artist’s work from 1979 until his death in 2009. Trained under the tutelage of Anthony Caro at Central Saint Martins from 1964-1966, Flanagan resisted the industrial materials of his tutor – ‘found’ metals like steel – in favour of reviving the clay and bronze tradition. In Thinker @ Rock Cross, the hare sits pensively against a rock, in a dramatic classical pose of monumental nature. The rock is suspended triangularly from the circular plinth, and a sharp-edged square cross sits atop the granular rock.

     

    For Flanagan, ‘the hare is a metaphor… for sacrifice in the face of peace’.i In the present work, by positioning the hare in a seated position, the artist anthropomorphises the animal as it rests its head on its paw. The hare is not without poetic and symbolic significance: it represented vitality for the Egyptians, immortality in Chinese myth, and abundance, prosperity and good fortune in Celtic myth (Flanagan was Welsh). Flanagan was inspired by Alfred Jarry’s concept of ‘Pataphysics’ – a philosophy distanced from logic that encourages the inherent incoherency of contradictions – which involves the imaginary and fantastical.ii Here, the hare is a result of this interest as the animal takes the position of a meditative thinker. The artist upends the viewer’s associations with the hare as a beacon of speed and freedom; instead, it is depicted in stasis, in concentrated introspection, which is a fantastical subversion. Flanagan further instils mysticism into the work by including the square or equal-armed cross, an ancient symbol for the four elements and seasons, which grounds the hare in nature.

    ‘‘Now we have Flanagan’s hares inside our heads, rather as we have Giacometti’s attenuated men and Moore’s reclining women, Arp’s full fruit and Judd’s empty boxes.’’
    —Mel Gooding

    Flanagan praised the 19th-Century master Auguste Rodin’s craftsmanship: ‘Rodin’s the best modeller there’s been. He is the boundless star’.iii The artist's handling of the medium shows many similarities to Rodin’s approach. Flanagan’s ability to convey expression, movement and muscularity into such an unyielding material as bronze owes much to Rodin’s superb understanding and manipulation of the material. The two artists revelled in the theatre of the production process – the alchemic translation of clay to bronze – and they consciously left traces of their workmanship in the bronze finish.

     

    Auguste Rodin, The Thinker, modelled 1880-1881, cast 1924, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Image: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Bequest of Jules E. Mastbaum, 1929, F1929-15

     

    Thinker @ Rock Cross is redolent of Rodin’s most celebrated sculpture The Thinker. The Thinker was originally conceived as The Poet, a representation of the poet Dante Alighieri for the tympanum of The Gates of Hell, a scene from the Divine Comedy. His face is taut with expression, frozen in a meditative state whilst his muscular body is clenched in tension. In the present work, the hare mimics this pose. Despite the compositional similarities, Flanagan made notable deviations with his ‘Thinker’, Rodin’s sculpture does not alter the human form while Flanagan distorts the hare for expressive purposes. The artist elongates and stylises the torso, limbs, paws and ears of the hare while rendering the head and eyes in much greater detail. This effect further anthropomorphises the hare, affording it a greater contemplative and introspective nature. In this way, The Thinker and Thinker @ Rock Cross become universal emblems of humans in thought.

     

     

    i Jo Melvin, The Hare is Metaphor | Paul Kasmin Gallery, YouTube, 25 January 2022, online.

    ii Jo Melvin, The Hare is Metaphor | Paul Kasmin Gallery, YouTube, 25 January 2022, online.

    iii Barry Flanagan, quoted in ‘Barry Flanagan In Conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist’ in Barry Flanagan: sculpture, 1965-2005, Dublin, 2006, p.67.

    • Provenance

      Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland
      Private Collection
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      London, Waddington Galleries, Barry Flanagan, 16 September - 10 October 1998, no. 3, pp. 3, 51 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 4)
      Paris, Galerie Lelong, Barry Flanagan, 15 January - 13 March 2004 (another example exhibited)
      Auckland, Gow Langsford Gallery, In Contemplation | Barry Flanagan, 8 June - 2 July 2022 (another example exhibited)
      Vienna, Heidi Horten Collection, Open, 3 June - 2 October 2022 (another example exhibited)

    • Literature

      Enrique Juncosa, Barry Flanagan Sculpture 1965-2005, exh. cat., Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Dublin, 2006, p. 126 (another example illustrated)
      Clare Preston, ed., Barry Flanagan, London, 2017, pp. 106, 284 (another example illustrated, p. 106)

151

Thinker @ Rock Cross

incised with the artist's monogram, number and stamped with the foundry mark ' F 1/8' on the base
bronze
154.9 x 140 x 120 cm (60 7/8 x 55 1/8 x 47 1/4 in.)
Conceived in 1997 and executed in 1998, this work is number 1 from an edition of 8 plus 2 artist's proofs.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£300,000 - 400,000 

Sold for £355,600

Contact Specialist

Charlotte Gibbs
Associate Specialist
+44 73931 41144
cgibbs@phillips.com

Simon Tovey
Specialist, Associate Director
+44 20 7318 4084
stovey@phillips.com
 

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale

London Auction 12 October 2023