Exorcising the fear

The sculptor Elisabeth Frink (1930–93) responded to the climate of the Cold War with powerful works exploring man and beast as predator and prey. As her work undergoes a timely reappraisal, Mary Miers considers her career

- Mary Miers

DAME ELISABETH FRINK was the first female sculptor to be elected a Royal Academician (in 1977) and her public commissions number 38, from Blind Beggar and his Dog (1957) in London’s Bethnal Green to the monumental Risen Christ, installed at Liverpool Cathedral a week before her death.

Yet, perhaps in part because she was a woman in a still male dominated world and because she made figurative bronzes when Abstract art and Conceptualism were in fashion, until now, she has been under-represented in public galleries and museums (see box). This, in spite of the extraordinary expressive power and originality of her sculpture, through which she explored the themes of humanity and Nature that preoccupied her through her life.

Frink acquired a deep love and knowledge of the natural world growing up in rural Suffolk, where she learnt to ride aged four. She had an instinctive affinity with animals and was fascinated by the behavioural instincts they share with humans and their depiction in art as ancient as cave paintings. Her later representations became more gentle and naturalistic, but she was interested in the darker side of the animal and human world, the brutality as well as the affection.