The Bowler

Standing over three metres tall, The Bowler is a lithe and witty example of Barry Flanagan’s hare sculptures. Conceived in 1990, it fuses his most celebrated subject with a nod to his love of cricket. The hare had defined Flanagan’s earliest experiments with bronze casting in the late 1970s, and quickly became a constant in his practice. Inspired by a sighting of the creature bounding across the Sussex Downs, the artist was fascinated by its physical qualities and rich mythological associations. He came to identify with many of its attributes, and imbued his hares with a range of expressive, metamorphic human properties. At once self-reflective and universal in spirit, the present work stands among his most characterful and dynamic hare sculptures: other casts are held in the European Centre for Contemporary Art, Strasbourg and the Osaka City Museum of Modern Art.

Flanagan’s embrace of bronze represented a critical moment in his practice, marking his turn away from rope, sand, linen and other unconventional ‘soft’ materials. Despite its weight and solidity, the medium became inextricably bound to a creature defined by its restless physicality and mercurial characteristics. The artist was a member of the Royal Zoological Society, and his sculptural menagerie included elephants, horses and other animals. The hare, however, came to assume special prominence within his oeuvre. As a young boy in Wales, Flanagan heard local poachers describe its fearlessness and physical prowess. Later, he discovered the book The Leaping Hare by George Ewart Evans and David Thompson, which reawakened the wonder of these childhood tales. It also detailed the hare’s wide-ranging historical connotations: from immortality in Chinese culture, to fecundity and rejuvenation as a primordial symbol of Easter. In bronze—a medium with an equally rich history—the creature came to life in art as never before, exuding an energy and magic that Flanagan believed the human form was unable to capture.

Drawing upon his admiration for the work of Joan Miró, Flanagan’s hares are characterised by their fluid anatomies and exuberant, shape-shifting qualities. They are charged with uncanny anthropomorphic wit, many modelled on poses enacted by his daughter. Beyond that, however, they also came to represent self-portraits of sorts. The artist was impressed to learn that the hare was the only animal that would leap over fire rather than running away from it, and frequently compared this attribute to his own propensity to run headlong into problems. He also identified strongly with the hare’s athleticism: he himself was a keen dancer and sportsman, as well as an avid fan of cricket in particular. In The Bowler, as well as other works such as The Cricketer (1989), Flanagan brought his studies of the sport to bear upon the hare’s posture, mimicking the signature bowling techniques of players such as Courtney Walsh and Michael Holding. Here, the creature’s body is coiled and ready for action, his arms wound up and leg raised as if about to spring forwards.

The Bowler dates from a period of critical acclaim for Flanagan. The previous decade he had participated in Documenta 7 and represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, as well as mounting a major solo exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. By 1990 his hare sculptures had been acquired by public sites and museums across the world: he was awarded an OBE the following year. The present work followed major sculptures of the late 1980s including Boxing Hare on Anvil (1989), Nijinski Hare (1989) and The Drummer (1989-1990), all of which were defined by the same sense of liveliness and vigour. If Flanagan’s hares are to be understood as partial ciphers for himself, The Bowler bristles with the joy and triumph of this rich creative period. As Paul Levy has written, ‘[Flanagan’s hares] don’t symbolise life, they live it’ (P. Levy, ‘Joy of Sculpture’, in Barry Flanagan: Linear Sculptures in Bronze and Stone Carvings, exh. cat. Waddington Galleries, London 2004, n.p.).