Goggle Head

Details

Dame Elisabeth Frink, R.A. (1930-1993)
Goggle Head
signed 'Frink' (on the back of the neck) and stamped 'Morris/Singer/FOUNDERS/LONDON' (on the back of the neck)
bronze with a dark brown patina and polished goggles
27 in. (68.6 cm.) high
Conceived in 1969 and cast in an edition of 6.

Provenance

with Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York, where purchased by the present owner.

Literature

B. Robertson, Elisabeth Frink Sculpture Catalogue Raisonné, Salisbury, 1984, p. 176, no. 182, another cast illustrated.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

Frink comments on the development of the Goggle Head series, 'The soldiers' heads were started in 1964 in England and led on to the goggle heads, which were the reflection of my feelings about the Algerian War and the Moroccan strongmen. One, called Oufkir, was held largely responsible for the death of the Algerian freedom fighter Ben Barka. Oufkir had an extraordinarily sinister face - always in dark glasses. These goggle heads became for me a symbol of evil and destruction in North Africa and, in the end, everywhere else' (see exhibition catalogue, Elisabeth Frink, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., 1990, p. 53). The 'mirror glasses' in the present work were patinated to a high shine to express the inscrutability of Oufkir.

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