ELISABETH FRINK HORSE GALLOPS TO AUCTION WITH A £60,000–£80,000 ESTIMATE

Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930–1993) was a significant British sculptor and printmaker who, according to her obituary in , demonstrated three essential themes in her work, ‘the nature of Man; the ‘horseness’ of horses; and the divine in human form’. She learned to ride a horse at a very young age and was fascinated by how the animals moved and looked. In 1980 she was commissioned by the Earl of March to sculpt a life-sized horse in bronze for Goodwood Racecourse. A maquette for that commission was recently consigned to Woolley & Wallis’s Modern British & 20th Century Art sale on 8th December with an auction estimate of £60,000–£80,000. While the Goodwood version is unusual in its relatively smooth finish, the maquette is more typical of Frink’s work, with its roughly hewn texture. She believed that, ‘The outer skin may define more or less conventional features, but a second look should indicate the complex strains of nerve-endings and the anticipatory reflexes of something that is about to happen.’