Walking Madonna

Details

Dame Elisabeth Frink, R.A. (1930-1993)
Walking Madonna
signed 'Frink' (on the base)
bronze with a dark brown patina
81 in. (205.7 cm.) high
Conceived in 1981 and cast in an edition of three.

Provenance

Acquired directly from the artist.

Literature

B. Robertson, Elisabeth Frink Sculpture Catalogue Raisonné, Salisbury 1984, p. 195, no. 263, another cast illustrated.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

Walking Madonna was commissioned for Salisbury Cathedral in 1981. For an artist usually preoccupied with the male nude, the celebrated Walking Madonna is the best known exception. Frink, educated in a Catholic convent, brought to the sculpture a feeling of austerity and evident suffering through the coarse homespun of the garment, combined with a grim optimism as the figure strides determinedly forward. The artist herself related the angularity of the piece with the shape of the Cathedral (see S. Kent, Another View: The sculpture of Elisabeth Frink, London, Royal Academy exhibition catalogue, London, 1985, p. 25).

Another cast was sold at Christie's on 7 June 2002 (£182,650), the then auction record for the artist.

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