Biography
Barry Flanagan was perhaps best known for his dynamic, often monumental, bronze hares. He studied Architecture at Birmingham College of Art and Crafts, and, after spells at different colleges, was accepted on the Vocational Diploma Programme in Sculpture at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art in London. After graduating in 1966, Flanagan taught at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art and at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. In 1991, he was elected to the Royal Academy and received an OBE.
From the outset, Flanagan’s work was perceived as radical and independent. He revolutionised sculptural material when, in 1965, whilst still a student, he showed the soft sculpture “aaing j gni aa, 1965” at Better Books, Charing Cross Road (bought by the Tate Gallery in 1969). Works such as this and “4 casb 2 '67, 1967” changed ideas about the language of sculpture forever. Flanagan was interested in pataphysics and in Alfred Jarry’s “science of imaginary solutions”; this ethos is evident in the playfulness of his approach, which allows materials to find their own sculptural form, be it sand, rope, stone, sheet metal, cloth, clay, or bronze.
Flanagan’s first one-man show was held at the Rowan Gallery, London, in 1966. Thereafter, he exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Britain and abroad, including the seminal “When Attitudes Become Form” in Bern (1968), “Op Losse Schroeven” in Amsterdam (1969), and “Information” in New York (1970). In 1999, he had a solo exhibition at the Galerie Xavier Hufkens in Brussels, followed by one at Tate Liverpool (2000). In 2002, a major exhibition of his work was hosted at the Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Germany, and travelled to the Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, Nice. In 2006, in association with the Hugh Lane Gallery, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin held a major retrospective of his work, which included ten large-scale bronzes installed along O’Connell Street and in Parnell Square.
Flanagan represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1982. A major retrospective of his work was held at the Fundación “La Caixa” Madrid in 1993, touring to the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, in 1994. His bronze hares were exhibited in many outdoor spaces, most notably on Park Avenue in New York (in 1995–96) and at Grant Park, Chicago (in 1996). In 2011, the Tate presented an exhibition entitled “Barry Flanagan Early Works 1965-1982”.
Barry Flanagan’s work is held in public collections worldwide, including MoMA (New York), Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, MNAM – Centre Pompidou (Paris) and Tate (London).
