Barry Flanagan Barry Flanagan (1941–2009), while equally well-versed in draughtsmanship, printmaking, and photography, is primarily known today for his work as a sculptor, most notably his bronze hare sculptures of the early eighties. After studying architecture at Birmingham College of Art and Crafts, with various interludes at different colleges, he eventually found himself in London studying sculpture at the Saint Martin’s School of Art. From the beginning of his career, Flanagan created playfully subversive works that broke with the conventions of sculpture at the time, while injecting his own sensibility and humor into his work. In harkening back to forms and mythologies of antiquity, he became a seminal figure in the 1980s as he pushed the Post-minimal field of sculpture into a new direction.
Studio International in 1967 he wrote: “One merely causes things to reveal themselves to the sculptural awareness. It is the awareness that develops, not the agents of the sculptural phenomena.” His work was featured in the groundbreaking exhibition "When Attitudes Become Form" at Kunsthalle Bern (1969), and he represented Britain in the 1982 Venice Biennale. His bronze hares have also been exhibited in many public outdoor spaces, among them Park Avenue in New York in 1995-96, and Grant Park, Chicago in 1996. His work is held in public collections around the globe including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and the Tate, London. “Estate of Barry Flanagan.” Estate of Barry Flanagan, barryflanagan.com/.
His early beginnings in sculpture encompassed a wide array of materials— jute sacks, sand, cloth, plastic, clay, and plaster—but he eventually transitioned into the use of more permanent materials such as stone, ceramics, and metals. The three pieces offered in LAMA's June 10, 2018 auction, Miracle in the Cabbage Patch VIII 78 (1978), Two Dog (1978), and Butterfly 10/82 (1982), demonstrate the breadth of interest in sculpture at this crucial point in his career. In an oft-cited quote published in
101 BARRY FLANAGAN
Miracle in the Cabbage Patch VIII 78 1978 Stone Initialed, titled, and dated to underside 17.5" x 12" x 7.5" (44 x 30 x 19 cm)
$10,000–15,000