A concise, detailed and sensitively curated new exhibition of work by British sculptor and printmaker Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993) is currently on show at Dorset Museum & Art Gallery in Dorchester. The exhibition focuses on the period when Frink lived in Dorset, working from her home and purpose-built studio at Woolland House near Blandford Forum.

Frink’s relationship with Dorset began in 1976 when she and her third husband Alex Csaky found Woolland House, the spacious grounds of which allowed her space to practice positioning and displaying her large-scale sculptures outside. It was here that she completed some of her most important work, including the Dorset Martyrs commission from Dorchester, and her final sculpture, Risen Christ, for Liverpool Cathedral. Woolland House was both a creative retreat for Frink but also a bohemian place where friends from the art and creative worlds gathered, including author Michael Morpurgo and fashion designer Jean Muir, bringing “a lot of stimulus” to Frink.

Despite the small scale of this exhibition (it occupies just one room at Dorset Museum & Art Gallery), it has been sensitively curated to showcase the breadth and scale, both physically and metaphorically, of Frink’s extraordinary output. The large sulptures are displayed in such a way that visitors can appreciate their details but also their heft: the Riace III figure, for example, is redolent of ancient Greek and Roman military sculptures in its size and stance. Many of the male figures exude an air of thought and introspection, while the heads are enigmatic, asking the viewer to ponder what lies behind the sunglasses or expressionless hooded eyes (the inclusion sunglasses on these heads was inspired by a photograph of Moroccan military leader General Mohamed Oufkir when Frink was living in France).

There are also many prints and sketches, maquettes and memorabilia which demonstrate Frink’s artistic process and vision, her personal life and the profound influences that shaped her work – human conflict and our relationship with the natural world. Many of the items on display, including working plasters that formed the basis of Frink’s bronze sculptures, are on public show for the first time. The exhibition also includes personal papers and photographs from the Frink Archive at the Dorset History Centre, and large-scale sculptures from Yorkshire Sculpture Park and The Ingram Collection of Modern British and Contemporary Art. A thoughtfully-produced book accompanies the exhibition, with a commentary on Frink’s life and work by Annette Ratuszniak, former curator of the Elisabeth Frink Estate, as well as reminiscences from her friends and artistic colleagues.

On her death, Frink bequeathed her estate to the nation and Dorset Museum & Art Gallery was a significant beneciary, receiving sculptures, drawings, original prints and plasters, and studio materials – many of which can be seen in this exhibition, elsewhere in the Museum and in Dorchester town and county hospital, and at Blandford Fashion Museum

Elisabeth Frink: A View from Within runs at Dorset Museum & Art Gallery until 21 April 2024. Following its run in Dorset, the exhibition will tour Wessex with dates in Swindon Museum and Art Gallery (2024, dates to be confirmed) and the Salisbury Museum (May – October 2025).

Well worth a visit, plus Dorset Museum has a wonderful collection on the geology, archaeology, pre-history and social history of Dorset.

Elisabeth Frink: A View from Within

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