Elisabeth Frink: Sculpture and Drawings 1950-1990

For four decades Elisabeth Frink has made eloquent sculptures that take their place with unselfconscious dignity in England's public spaces and private homes. The truthfulness and emotional content of her work have an appeal that cuts across the usual social divisions of education or privilege. Her work is admired by the public at every level and can be found in a variety of institutions, from great museums to college art departments. Frink's subjects are basic and familiar-men, horses, birds and dogs. These are subjects that she understands fundamentally. It is a- measure of her artistic and imaginative integrity (for which an exceptional purity of spirit is the bedrock) that her art, for all its accessibility to a wide audience, never resorts to academic formulas or clichés. An occasional personal mannerism does appear, but this could be said of strong painters or sculptors throughout history, and it does, after all, identify their work.