Dame Elisabeth Frink R.A. (British, 1930-1993) Small Lying Down Horse signed and numbered 'Frink/3/10' (on the underside) bronze with a dark brown patina 32.4 cm. (12 3/4 in.) wide Conceived in 1986 Footnotes: Provenance With Beaux Arts, London, December 1987, where acquired by the family of the present owner Private Collection, U.K. Exhibited Hong Kong, The Rotunda, Exchange Square, Elisabeth Frink: Sculpture & Drawings, 31 January-31 March 1989 Literature (Exh.cat.), Nigel Cameron, Elisabeth Frink: Sculpture & Drawings, Hongkong Land Property Company Ltd., Exchange Square, Hong Kong, 1989 (Exh.cat.), Bryan Robertson, Elisabeth Frink: Sculpture and Drawings 1950-90, 1990 Edward Lucie-Smith, Elisabeth Frink: Sculpture since 1984 and Drawings, Art Books International, London, 1994 p.186, cat.no.SC26 (ill.b&w, another cast) Annette Ratuszniak (ed.), Elisabeth Frink: Catalogue Raisonné of Sculpture 1947-93, Lund Humphries in association with the Frink Estate and Beaux Arts, London, 2013, p.175, cat.no.FCR357 (col.ill., another cast) The horse first came into Frink's oeuvre in the late 1960's, coinciding with a move to Camargue, along the southern coast of France between Montpellier and Marselle, that introduced her to the semi-wild herds of horses for which the area is famous. Growing up in the countryside, she had always been an accomplished rider, and understood horses very well beyond a mere aesthetic appeal, admiring what she perceived to be their 'strength, fidelity and sagacity' (Edward Lucie-Smith, Elisabeth Frink: Sculpture since 1984 and Drawings, Art Books International, London, 1994, p.40). But rather than the domestic horses that she was used to, it was always the wilder, more exotic horses that drew her artistic attention most - those at Camargue, a newly discovered Asiatic horse from the Mongolian steppe that had started to appear in London Zoos, or even the Chinese terracotta horse from a Tang dynasty tomb that Frink herself owned. Part of this focus feeds into the idea of autonomy that is pervasive in Frink's depiction of animals. Although keenly aware of the interdependency between man and animal, especially in the case of dogs and horses, the sense that one is derivative of the other is wholly avoided. Taking lead from what she believed to be a far more diverse and characterful representation of the horse in Chinese art, the horse here exists in its own right, rather than as a servant to man; calm, at rest and secure in its own physicality and personality Frink was unapologetically figurative in her approach, looking to express the tensions of the human condition and of the world more broadly by addressing the source, rather than through visual analogy. But where in the early stages of her career her work shows a more distorted image of reality more closely tied to the British sculptors of her day, her later work becomes more assertively naturalistic - not in a rejection of Abstraction per se, but in a confirmation of the continuing ability of the real world to capture what she looked to express. In the context of Small Lying Down Horse, Frink celebrates with confidence and a degree of defiance the depth of the subject matter in itself; it's visual and physical energy, its character, and the contemplation it can provoke on ourselves and our own qualities. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: AR AR Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing