Elisabeth Frink had been fascinated by the horse since she was a child. Some of her earliest juvenile drawings, now held in the Frink archive in Dorchester, are of horses – at work or at rest – and they display an innate empathy for these majestic animals. Although the first half of Frink’s career was dominated by sculptures of men, birds and human-avian hybrids, she also created wonderfully sensitive depictions of wild boar, dogs, and cats, too. However, despite her love of horses, she did not begin to reintroduce the subject into her art seriously until the late 1960s, when, in 1967, she moved with her son and her second husband, Edward Pool, to the Camargue region in the South of France. There she would ride out with the local cowboys, and observed their intimate, codependent relationship with their horses. She also bought her son a pony to ride, and studied its movement and behaviour, often sitting with it in its paddock for hours on end. These experiences stimulated a renewed interest in the horse as a primary subject in Frink’s art, and she began sculpting and drawing them from around 1969, when she created her first large-scale Horse and Rider pair. This impressive sculpture, which displays the influence of 20th century Italian artists, Marino Marini and Giacomo Manzù, explores the delicate relationship between Man and beast – a theme which would carry through the artist’s work for the next 23 years. What distinguishes this early Horse and Rider from later incarnations of the subject is the suggestion of a bridle in the circular marks on either side of the horse’s muzzle and the positioning of the man’s left hand, which appears to be yanking at invisible reins. This is humanity attempting in vain to control nature and subdue a fellow creature that is in turn fighting to retain its independent, authentic spirit. More and more, however, Frink’s horse and rider motif came to represent a partnership between humans and animals – perhaps seen most famously in her Horse and Rider from 1975, now situated on the corner of Dover Street.
This present piece “Robed Rider” stands out in Frink’s oeuvre for a number of reasons. Unlike nearly all her previous horsemen, this one is clothed, and his face and general attitude appear more naturalistic than the somewhat anatomically distorted archetypes of humanity which she had created for decades prior. The horse, too, has the same feeling of realism, although it is hard to identify it as a specific breed (Frink had no interest in studying anatomy or representing individual animal species; her goal was to capture the essence of the animal and its authentic spirit). One feels as though one is in the presence of a real person and a real animal. Frink never spoke about the meaning behind this piece, but the overall impression is of symbiosis – two beings whose fates are entwined. There is no suggestion of tack, no coercion of the animal. Both figures are entirely at rest, pausing in their journey of unknown location and duration. The art historian and critic, Edward Lucie- Smith (a close friend of Frink), theorised that this sculpture may have been inspired by her third husband, Alex Csáky.
Czáky came from an aristocratic Hungarian family; the history of Hungary was, so to speak, in his blood. Horseman could be read as a representation of a nomadic Magyar rider, roaming the Hungarian plains, only half-civilized, always on the lookout for conquest.
The piece was first modelled in 1984, with no base, under the title, Horseman. The edition was received so successfully that Frink decided to create another, adding a base to distinguish them from one another, but also to ground the figures. An example can be found in the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the plaster in the Tate.
Alongside 20th century European sculpture, and Renaissance prototypes of the noble equestrian portrait, which Frink had first encountered on a trip to the Veneto in 1947, she was also inspired by the treatment of horses in East Asian art, particularly the Chinese distinctive ceramic horses created during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). These sculptures demonstrated an alternative way of seeing nature to that which had been the mainstay of Western art for centuries. The Tang horses forgo anatomical accuracy in favour of a physical representation of the spirit of the creature. They are lyrical, energetic and bulging with power; as are Frink’s horses. Like all Frink’s animals, they exist independently from humanity, yet they speak clearly to human sensibilities.
Frink was diagnosed with cancer of the Oesophagus in January 1991. During her treatment in hospital, the horse became an important symbol of stoicism for her. She planned to create a larger-than-life-sized standing horse, stylistically unlike any she had made before – a piece which eventually materialised as War Horse (1991) (Now permanently installed in the grounds of Chatsworth House, Derbyshire), constructed from an old plaster maquette for the large horse (1980) commissioned by the Earl of March for Goodwood racecourse. She said she admired anyone who would carry on regardless, do what had to be done to help others, yet stay totally and fervently true to themselves. She believed all animals had the capacity for this kind of authenticity and empathy, but that they were qualities rarely displayed in humanity; hence her veneration of the archetype of the martyr in her work (of which the Tribute heads are arguably the most potent incarnation). The notion of heroic stoicism was imbued in War Horse and the other smaller horse sculptures she created around it, which include Standing Horse (1993). She said the thought of making these pieces helped her face her illness and gave her hope and courage for the future. Sadly, her illness eventually won out and Standing Horse proved to be the last sculpture Frink ever made. She died at her home in Dorset shortly after it was finished in 1993.
