This work is recorded as FCR350

Leaping Man, 1985 is a wonderful example of Frink’s acclaimed figurative sculpture in bronze. While her contemporaries principally focussed on depicting the female form, Frink instead chose the male, using this subject to explore not only the strengths but the vulnerabilities of the human condition and their impact on nature.

Frink’s father, a military officer who served in World War Two was much adored by the artist. Growing up near an airbase in the Suffolk countryside meant that she was heavily exposed to military activities including air raids and plane crashes, witnessing both the physical and mental strain on her father and others on the front-line. This provided great influence on Frink’s practice and her figurative sculptures can be seen to adopt a character akin to the stoicism and bravery that soldiers had to exhibit during this time. Inspiration also came from the sculptor Auguste Rodin, whose classical figurative works in bronze captured the human body in various states of movement, charged with power and vivacity. Frink reflects on Rodin’s work in Ratuszniak’s catalogue raisonné of the artist’s sculpture. She states ‘…when I was young, that was the first thing I wanted to emulate – especially his small leaping figures. There’s a real dynamic force in them.’ (E. Frink quoted in A. Ratuszniak, Elisabeth Frink: Catalogue Raisonné of Sculpture 1947-93, Farnham, 2013, p. 172).

At first glance, Leaping Man displays this intensity. Frozen in time, the figure is powerfully poised mid-stride, his eyes wide, alert and resolutely fixated upon his destination. Like Frink’s Running Man series from the 1960s, while the figure appears outwardly strong, he carries a sense of ambiguity. The viewer is left unsure whether the man is running out of delight or if he rushes towards or away from something in a ‘fight or flight’ moment. Frink’s sculptural technique is equally important to the work. Unconcerned by anatomical accuracy, she would chisel, score and re-work her plaster models impulsively, creating deep incisions and large areas of texture within each figure. This act not only suggests a sense of inner energy and presence of ‘being’ in space, but the exposure of bare flesh physically subjects her figures to outside elements, highlighting once again the fragility and delicate balance within humankind.

Elisabeth Frink is subject to a major exhibition, Natural Connection at Yorkshire Sculpture Park from June 2024 until February 2025.