Barry FlanaganBARRY FLANAGAN, who has died aged 68, was a renowned sculptor, best known for his monumental bronze hares.
A major exhibition of his work was held at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2006. The exhibition coincided with a display of 10 large bronze sculptures in O’Connell Street, Dublin, organised by Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane.
His series of hare sculptures, which he began in the late 1970s, are among the most instantly recognisable artworks of the last 20 years.
Playful, spontaneous and full of life, many depict their subject engaged in human activities – dancing, playing musical instruments and sports and, latterly, using technology.
Visitors to IMMA will be familiar with The Drummer, which has marked the main entrance to the museum since its donation by the artist in 2001.
The exhibition brought together 11 similar works, spanning the many ingenious variations which Flanagan brought to this strand of his work.
Flanagan saw the hare as a particularly apt vehicle for these human endeavours and emotions: “If you consider what conveys situation and meaning in a human figure, the range of expression is in fact more limited than the device of investing an animal – a hare especially – with the expressive attributes of a human being. The ears for instance are able to convey far more than a squint in the eye of a figure, or a grimace in the face of the model”.
Other members of Flanagan's unique menagerie include Opera Dog(1981) and his horse sculpture Field Day 1(1986).
Defining his approach, he said: “One merely causes things to reveal themselves to the sculptural awareness.”
He described his working methods as seasonal rather than daily, ergonomic rather than ordered. He worked to no deadline, but followed the progress of his own work, moving between studios rented in Spain, France and London.
Asked about the importance of Rodin to his sculptural practice, he replied: “He was the master. . . Rodin’s the best modeller there’s been. He is the boundless star.”
Born in Prestatyn, North Wales, in 1941, he was one of the four children of Bill and Monica Flanagan. Having studied at the Birmingham College of Art and Crafts and St Martin’s School of Art, London, he later taught at St Martin’s and at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London.
Known as an “independent spirit”, he emerged from the formalist tradition of the 1960s to embrace post-minimalist sculpture, which was marked by the use of unusual materials – fabric, rope and sand.
His interest in the iconoclastic works of the French poet, novelist, playwright and inventor of pataphysics, the science of imaginary solutions, Alfred Jarry, inspired much of his early work.
His first solo exhibition was held at the Rowan Gallery in London in 1966. He made a major contribution to radical practice in the 1960s and 1970s, and continued to develop sculptural combinations such as wood and stone before turning to bronze.
In the 1960s he participated in the Destruction in Art Symposium during which he acted as a roadie for Yoko Ono, picking up Biba dresses for one of her exhibits.
He also worked with the Strider Dance Group, choreographing two pieces staged at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.
Flanagan’s work also includes ceramic pieces, abstract sculptures, drawings in pencil and ink, etchings, watercolours and collages on paper covering a wide range of subject matter including life studies, animals and abstract shapes.
In the 1980s he produced a series of beautiful marble sculptures, made in collaboration with Italian artisans from Pietrasanta.
A major retrospective of his work, curated by current IMMA director Enrique Juncosa, was held at the Fundación “la Caixa”, Madrid, in 1993, touring to the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, in 1994.
In 1999 he had a solo exhibition at Galerie Xavier Hufkens in Brussels, followed by an exhibition at Tate Liverpool in 2000. His work is held in notable public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, while his bronze hares have been exhibited in many outdoor spaces, most notably on Park Avenue, New York, and at Grant Park, Chicago.
An avid reader, he illustrated Seamus Heaney's The Names of the Hares, which was translated from Middle English.
Of Irish extraction – his grandfather was a shipwright from Cork – he moved to Dublin in the mid-1990s and became an Irish citizen. He was generous in his support of younger artists, among them composers and film-makers.
In 1982 he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale. In 1991 he was elected to membership of the Royal Academy, and also that year was awarded an OBE.
His wide-ranging interests included music, dance, poetry and film.
Predeceased by his wife Sue Lewis, he is survived by their daughters Flan and Tara, his son and daughter, with Renata Widmann, Alfred and Annabelle, and his partner Jessica Sturgess.
Barry Flanagan: born January 11th, 1941; died August 31st, 2009