A wonderful bronze on steel sculpture by Barry Flanagan portraying a Large Leaping Hare will be sold at Bonhams sale of 20th Century British Art in New Bond Street on Tuesday 6 March 2007 - estimated to fetch £300,000-500,000. Conceived in 1982, this work (244×275 x112 cm) is dramatic, witty, ironic, rebellious and highly entertaining and epitomises speed and freedom.

This sculpture was purchased directly from the artist and another cast was shown at the Pompidou Centre in Paris in an exhibition of Barry Flanagan sculptures in 1983.

Using the hare as a human surrogate, rather than sculpting human bodies, Flanagan has gone beyond the constraints of academicism while dealing with the figure. He has also freed his work from immediate sentiments or any explicit references to sexuality. The hare has the energy of line drawings, expressing movement, vitality and action, and suggesting speed, dynamism, tension and lightness.

Matthew Bradbury, Director of 20thCentury British Art comments, “The hare has become so associated with Flanagan that it is now seen as his emblem and trademark. The significance of the hare for Flanagan in his art cannot be under-estimated. It became the motif in which he could best express his personal take on the world – a visual device for displaying human traits.”

Bonhams

Posted: 02|28|07 at 5:29 pm. Filed under: UK News.