Dame Elizabeth Frink RA
Born 14 November 1930
Died 18 April 1993
Active: 1947 - 1993
Country of birth and death: England
Sculptor
Born Thurlow, Suffolk. Studied at Guildford School of Art 1947-49; Chelsea School of Art 1949-53. Taught at Chelsea School of Art, London 1951-61; St. Martin’s School of Art, London 1954-62; visiting instructor at Royal College of Art 1965-67. Trustee of the British Museum in 1975 and a member of the Royal Fine Arts Commission in 1976. Awarded prize in U.P.P. competition 1953. C.B.E. 1969. A.R.A. 1972. R.A. 1977, D.B.E. 1982, Companion of Honour 1992. She died of cancer at her home, Woolland House in Dorset.
Commissions include : Wild Boar for Harlow New Town 1957; Blind Man and his Dog for Bethnal Green site 1957; Bird Man for Sedgehill School, South London.
Exhibitions include: New Burlington Galleries, London 1951 and 1952; Beaux Arts Galleries, London 1952; LCC 1954, 57, 60; Royal Academy from 1954; St. George’s Gallery 1955; AC 1958, 60, 61; BC 1956; Waddington Galleries 1955 (solo), 1959 and after; Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York 1955 (solo).
Collections include: Tate Gallery; Arts Council; Royal Academy; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Carnegie Institute.
Further reading: E. Lucie-Smith and E. Frink, Frink, A Portrait, (London: Bloomsbury, 1994).
E. Mullins, The Art of Elisabeth Frink, (London: Lund Humphries, 1972).
B. Robertson, et al., Elisabeth Frink, Sculpture: Catalogue Raisoneé, (Salisbury: Harpvale Books, 1984).
Various authors, Elisabeth Frink, sculptures, graphic works, textiles, Salisbury Festival, 1997, (exh. cat.).
Biography from Whiteley (2001) with additional information from Collins (2004)
Wealth at death: £5,172,374 0s. 0d.
Probate date: 23 September 1993
Institutional and Business Connections
Elected ARA Royal Academy of Arts
14 October 1971 - 1 March 1977
See Popp and Valentine, 'Directory of Membership', (1996), p. 45.
Elected RA Royal Academy of Arts
1 March 1977
See Popp and Valentine, 'Directory of Membership', (1996), p. 45.
Personal and Professional Connections
Studied under Willi (Wilhelm Josef) Soukop
1947 (Circa)
Frink switched form painting to sculpture at Guildford School of Art where Soukop was head of sculpture.
Sources
Directory of sculptors working and exhibiting in Britain in the 1950s, by Gillian Whiteley
2001
p. 14
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
2004
Judith Collins, ‘Frink, Dame Elisabeth Jean (1930–1993)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/38274, accessed 25 July 2010]
Citing this record
'Dame Elizabeth Frink RA', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib4_1254323667, accessed 17 May 2022]
