Ram

Details

John B. Flannagan (1895-1942)
Ram
granite
13 in. (33 cm.) high
Executed circa 1930-31.

Provenance

Mr. and Mrs. Edward M.M. Warburg, New York, by 1942.
Beth Urdang Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts and Chicago, Illinois.
Acquired by the late owners from the above, 1991.

Literature

W.R. Valentiner, “The Simile in Sculptural Composition,” The Art Quarterly: Detroit Institute of Arts, vol. X, no. 4, Autumn 1947, pp. 272, 275, fig. 21, illustrated.
R.J. Forayth, John B. Flannagan: His Life and Works, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1965, pp. 311, 320, no. 93, illustrated.
H.B. Teilman, "Forerunners of American Abstraction," Carnegie Magazine, December 1971, p. 422, illustrated.

Exhibited

New York, Museum of Modern Art, The Sculpture of John B. Flannagan, October 28-November 29, 1942, pp. 17, 38, no. 10, illustrated.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carnegie Institute, Forerunners of American Abstraction, November 18, 1971-January 9, 1972, p. 37, no. 43.
New York, Vance Jordan Fine Art, Inc., Poetic Painting: American Masterworks from the Clark and Liebes Collections, October 29-December 7, 2001, pp. 9, 25, pl. 13, illustrated.

Lot Essay

The present work was created circa 1930-31, during John Flannagan's first stay in Ireland, his ancestral home. Erhard Weyhe, the owner of Flannagan’s long-time gallery, Weyhe’s Bookstore, sent the artist and his bride to the scenic western coast of Ireland for a year as a combination wedding gift and business investment. The region is known for its stunning, rocky cliffs and plentiful, grazing sheep, as seen in this charming stone sculpture. As emulated by the present work, Flannagan once observed, “I would like my sculpture to appear as rocks, left quite untouched and natural, and, as you have said, inevitable.” (as quoted in The Sculpture of John B. Flannagan, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1942, p. 9)

Another sculpture of a ram by Flannagan, circa 1929, is in the collection of the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida.

More from American Art

View All