Barry Flanagan, R.A.

Gifted by the Artist to the present owner in 1997

Dublin, Royal Hibernian Academy, Annual Exhibition, 1997 (another cast);
Chicago, Richard Gray Gallery, Barry Flanagan Sculpture, 17th April - 30th May 1998 (another cast);
Salzburg, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Barry Flanagan: New Sculpture, 30th May - 18th July (another cast);
London, Waddington Galleries, Barry Flanagan and the Economist Plaza, 16th September - 10th October 1998, cat. no.1, illustrated (another cast);
Brussels, Xavier Hufkens, Barry Flanagan, 3rd June - 4th September 1999 (another cast);
Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Barry Flanagan: Plastik und Zeichnung - Sculpture and Drawing, 5th May - 14th July 2002, cat. no.26 (another cast), with tour to Musée d'art moderne et d'art contemporain, Nice;
Stockholm, Wetterling Gallery, Barry Flanagan, 12th April - 19th May 2005, unnumbered catalogue (another cast).

Structurally sound. There are some signs of oxidation to the back of the base and minor, isolated flecks to the back of the computer's hard drive and on top of the screen where the hare sits. Some light surface dirt, otherwise the work appears in good overall condition. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions about the present work.
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The hare has taken many guises in Barry Flanagan’s sculpture - assertive, pensive, leaping and mysterious - and with its anthropomorphic qualities, it has become a much loved symbol of his work. Its incarnation as a modern day ‘Thinker’ sitting upon a computer in the present work is one of Flanagan’s most striking visions. A playful take on Rodin’s timeless The Thinker, as with Flanagan’s best works it succeeds in being both humorous and poignant, and allows the viewer to bring their own interpretation to the piece.

Flanagan first modelled a hare after Rodin’s The Thinker in a work from 1990 called Sculler, in which the hare sits contemplatively upon a boat - a version of this sculpture was recently included in Sotheby’s Beyond Limits exhibition at Chatsworth in 2012. Situated in water, the piece projected a sense of stillness and mystery. The hare's location in the present work continues this sense but the inclusion of the computer evokes other ideas. The very fact the computer, an object with which we are so familiar and now so dependent, is presented in this medium is itself a surprising and engaging image. With forethought that is characteristic of Flanagan, the computer now appears out-dated by today's standards owing to the rapid evolution of the industry, which Flanagan has deliberately played upon and which gives the work added resonance. Representative of our technological age, the computer's relevance is continually questioned through its many variations while The Thinker - unchanging - will always be necessary.

A major inspiration for Flanagan employing the hare in his sculpture came after encountering George Ewart Evans’ book, The Leaping Hare, published in 1972. It was an anthropological study of the hare and combines accounts of legends from different cultures, superstitions and mythologies with gamekeepers and poachers’ stories and anecdotes. It made a deep and lasting impression on Flanagan. Around the same time, Flanagan had a crucial experience, which he would frequently recount when explaining the importance of the hare motif: ‘I did see a hare and was most impressed by its gait. I was travelling from Sussex to Cornwall and this hare was running just beyond the hedge… And there were three figures, one of which was a dog, coming over the brow of the South Downs, and they were literally walking a Labrador, but the hare was there and was coursing along, and rather leaping, so that was it, a hare, a leaping hare’ (Flanagan interviewed by Melvyn Bragg, The South Bank Show, LWT, 23 January 1983). Flanagan’s first hare was made in 1980, Leaping Hare, Embellished, 2/3 jan ’80, and spurred the body of hares that was to follow.

The symbolic power of the hare is explicit in the present work. As a human figure, Thinker on Computer would be far more limited but as a hare, the piece is visually arresting and allows for a multitude of anthropomorphic and imaginative projections, and in this lies the enduring appeal of Flanagan’s work.