The Elisabeth Frink Exhibition: Wilfrid Wright 25 July 2024

The Frink Exhibition Coming to Swindon Opens in Dorset

As you’ll have seen the Elisabeth Frink exhibition A View from Within is coming to Museum and Art Swindon this spring. This will be the first touring exhibition as part of the Wessex Museums partnership. The partnership comprises Swindon, Dorset, Wiltshire and Salisbury Museums.

The exhibition opened at Dorset Museum in December. Frink had lived and worked in Dorset from 1976 till her death in 1993. Dorset Museum was one of the beneficiaries of a bequest from her son Lin Jammet (also an accomplished artist) following his death in 2017. As a result of this, Dorset Museum received more than 300 works. The bequest included thirty-one bronzes, over 100 works on paper and original plasters together with her studio tools and equipment.

Bronzed

It’s the large bronze works from the latter part of her career which dominate. It’s interesting to see these displayed alongside some of her preliminary sketches and plaster models. In the case of Seated Man II, they’ve positioned him so he’s looking at a sketch of himself from behind. This clever positioning of pieces and lighting gives a wonderful impression.

Seated Man II (1986) looking at a preliminary sketch of himself – Elisabeth Frink

In Dorchester

Dorchester has one of Frink’s most important public works – the Dorset Martyrs Memorial. It commemorates the people from Dorset executed for their religious beliefs in the 16th and 17th centuries. The exhibition includes her designs and a maquette showing how the design changed before the unveiling of the final version on Gallows Hill in 1986. Her support for human rights is one of the themes in her work explored in the exhibition. 

Another theme that’s clear from the works on show is capturing motion. Some of you will remember the Frink sculptures including Walking Man and Running Man that used to stand outside the WH Smith offices in Swindon. Some of the pieces in the exhibition reminded me of these.

As well as the large pieces there are also smaller sculptures from earlier in her career on display including Small Warrior. You may have seen that featured on the BBC’s Fake or Fortune. Some of the plaster models in the exhibition have never been on public display before. The exhibition also includes some of her printmaking and you see the same themes recurring in her work across different media.

Objects from her studio, archive material, family snaps and ephemera complete the display helping to give an impression of the person rather than her art alone.

A book has been published to accompany the exhibition, which I can also recommend.

Where to see it

The exhibition is in Dorchester Museum until 21st April. After which it will relocate to Museum and Art Swindon and I’m looking forward to seeing how it will work in a different space.

It’s seen a sizable increase in visitor numbers at the Dorset Museum with people travelling to Dorchester to see it. I hope the same thing will happen in Swindon, drawing visitors to the museum’s new home. I hope too, you are as excited about this exhibition coming to Swindon as I am.

See our full talks programme here: https://friendsofmas.org/events/categories/talks/