Rolling Horse

Elisabeth Frink was an equestrian, and horses recur throughout her work. Around 1964, she moved from England to the Camargue region of France, where she spent a decade in the countryside among semi-wild horses. Also known for her love of dogs, Frink said that her intention isn’t so much to sculpt the creatures’ physical forms so much as “the spirit of the animal”.

This rolling horse was made during the artist’s celebrated equine period of 1969–1985. Writer and curator Julian Spalding said of this time: “This is Frink at her most relaxed. She knew everything about horses and had the ability to sculpt them with both broad consequence and, at the same time, exacting precision. This accounts for their strength and agility. There's hardly any detail, but they are so alive that you expect one at any moment to flick a fly away with the swish of its tail or shake of its head”.