Elisabeth Frink, the confidently stylish outsider
sir – Colin Gleadell’s piece (October 16) on the brilliance of Dame Elisabeth Frink included the views of Paul Greenhalgh, director of the Sainsbury Centre. Mr Greenhalgh claimed that Dame Elisabeth was unfashionable among the curatorial elite because she became an outsider, a woman in a man’s world, and because she went against the abstract and conceptual mainstream of the time.
Mr Greenhalgh’s opinion is mainly correct. Yet it masks a more complex picture. In my conversations over several years with Dame Elisabeth – the last at an Arts Council lunch in her honour, shortly before her early death from cancer in 1993 – she was unconcerned with the fluctuations of fame and relaxed about the fleeting assessments of critics.
Yet as a stylish outsider, who regarded the politics and prissiness of London’s art establishment with light-hearted detachment, she was also confident about the future verdict of history.
At the time, Dame Elisabeth told me she was approached, as a British Museum trustee, to become the first female president of the Royal Academy of Arts. She turned down the prospect of this honour partly because it would reduce her time for work on commissions. A great loss, as her clarity of intellect, grasp of human nature and striking strength of character would have made her an outstanding president of the academy at a young age. To this day, there has never been a female president of the Royal Academy of Arts.
To borrow from Augustus John, Elisabeth Frink left her emotions behind for posterity to share. They are sufficient. They will survive. Lord Ryder of Wensum
London SW1