1930-1993
Dame Elisabeth Frink was born in 1930 in Suffolk, England. She is known for her sculpting and printmaking. From 1946-1949 she studied at the Guildford School of Arts and then at the Chelsea School of Art from 1949 to 1953. Frink’s subject manner in her earlier pieces include birds, men, horses and religious motifs. She very rarely designed pictures or sculptures of the female form.
In the 1960s she did a series of falling figures and winged men. Some feel that was influenced by the war and her living so close to a military base when she was a young child. In France during the late 60s, early 70s she began a series of monumental male heads with a threatening manner. On her return to England, she designed sculptures of barrel-chested, male nude forms with mask like features. In 1980s retrospective exhibitions were planned of her life’s work and the success from this prompted four more solo exhibitions, along with several group exhibitions.
Frink continued to work tirelessly, meeting art students, advising committees and accepting sculpting commissions. In 1991, after constant commissions for sculpting and more exhibiting, Frink underwent an operation for cancer of the oesophagus and was forced to rest, although a few weeks later she was sculpting again. In 1993, Risen Christ in Liverpool was to be her last sculpture and one week after it was installed, she passed away.
