Soldier's Head IV, 1965
Bronze
From the edition of 6
Ref: LH72

Literature
The Art of Elizabeth Frink, introduction by Edwin Mullins, (London : Lund Humphries, 1972), LH72 b&w ill.
Elizabeth Frink Sculpture: Catalogue Raisonné, (Harpvale Books, 1984), EF120 b&w ill.
25.5 cm (10 inches) High

Literature:
The Art of Elizabeth Frink, introduction by Edwin Mullins, (London : Lund Humphries, 1972), LH72 b&w ill.
Elizabeth Frink Sculpture: Catalogue Raisonné, (Harpvale Books, 1984), EF120 b&w ill.

Notes:
Elisabeth Frink was born in the Suffolk countryside and educated at a convent school. She studied at Guildford and Chelsea schools of art and her career took off immediately following her graduation, with her first exhibition at the Beaux Arts Gallery in 1952. The Tate bought a Bird sculpture at this time. In 1953 her contribution to the competition for a Monument to the Unknown Political Prisoner won a prize and was exhibited at the Tate. Whilst she was initially linked to the 1950s post-war artists including Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick and Kenneth Armitage, whose art was famously described by Herbert Read as the Geometry of Fear, she later chose to reject the abstraction which followed in the 1960s. It is her relationship with the male figure, both complex and often dark and menacing, that is the key recurring theme in her work, and which indicates the
sensitive skill with which she expresses the human condition. Her fascination with the male figure and psyche stems perhaps from her childhood as the daughter of a military man and as the wife of an ex-soldier. In her portrayals of soldiers, of which this is one of a series, she demonstrates her capacity to express man in all his facets, the powerful conquering hero and the darker more brutal side of the soldier at war. The first of this series is the large-scale Warrior’s Head, 1954 which references classical helmets of ancient civilizations. However by 1965 her mood has changed. Now the heads show fewer signs of nobility, there is a coarseness to their characters with a heavy jaw and small searching eyes. Elisabeth Frink exhibited regularly, notably at Waddington Galleries and there was a retrospective of her work held at the Royal Academy in 1985. In 1968 she was made a CBE and in 1982 a DBE. She was elected to the Royal Academy in 1977.
POA