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Lot Essay
Discussing the present work with Bryan Robertson (loc. cit.) the artist commented 'I also did a larger than life-size figure of Judas, not through a commission but for myself - I felt impelled to make it. In every case, I have chosed the form for the commission and have rarely been constrained by any other considerations. The religious impulse or acceptance or awareness must be there, but almost at an unconscious level - and it is not only activated by commissions because the idea for the figure of Judas had absorbed me for some time as a formal, figurative embodiment of the idea of betrayal, with its inherent formal problem of how this could be expressed without obvious histrionics. 'Judas' as a final work is primitive in feeling and somewhat brutish in character: the neck and shoulders are thick-set and the body has a certain coarseness. 'Judas' after all, was Judas. There were shields over the eyes, almost like dark glasses. This was just before I started making big heads and figures with goggles'.
In a 'personal comment' on the artist's work, Alex Herbage (see B. Robertson op. cit. , p.214) notes that 'In his introduction to the catalogue of the permanent sculpture exhibition at Sutton Manor, the art historian W.J. Strachan draws attention to Elisabeth Frink's 'Judas', a figure of 1963 whose considerable bulk perched on thin legs echoes a theme from her earlier period of predatory birds. Strachan comments that never since Rodin have guilt and betrayal been more effectively conveyed than in 'this shrinking form which needs no literary message'. This linking of Elisabeth Frink with Rodin is a bold comparison, but a true one; without doubt she is an outstanding artist and must be counted among the leading half-dozen sculptors in the world today'.
In a 'personal comment' on the artist's work, Alex Herbage (see B. Robertson op. cit. , p.214) notes that 'In his introduction to the catalogue of the permanent sculpture exhibition at Sutton Manor, the art historian W.J. Strachan draws attention to Elisabeth Frink's 'Judas', a figure of 1963 whose considerable bulk perched on thin legs echoes a theme from her earlier period of predatory birds. Strachan comments that never since Rodin have guilt and betrayal been more effectively conveyed than in 'this shrinking form which needs no literary message'. This linking of Elisabeth Frink with Rodin is a bold comparison, but a true one; without doubt she is an outstanding artist and must be counted among the leading half-dozen sculptors in the world today'.