Bedales Sixth Form students visit Barry Flanagan Exhibition at Tate Britain

By George Hatton, Head of Art at Bedales

The 17 AS Art students were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to visit the major Exhibition of the work of Barry Flanagan at the Tate Britain in London.
Flanagan (1941-2009) was one of Britain’s most original and inventive artists who coincidentally chose to educate his children, Sarah and Alfie, at Bedales. Everyone is familiar with the fine horse sculptures in the orchard that Barry gave to the Bedales community and his sculptures of leaping and boxing Hares are recognised throughout the world.  

The current major exhibition at the Tate, arranged over six large rooms, focuses on his early years as a sculptor, from 1965 to 1982. The show positions him as a key figure in the development of British and international sculpture in the second half of the 20th century. Barry’s sculpture is often playful and can give a hint of his love of making and his innate sense of humour as well.

The students were able to see the development of his work during a period that saw him graduating from St Martin’s School of Art in 1966 when he was producing some very minimalist conceptual works. His “Ringn ‘66”, a pile of sand on the gallery floor and “June 2 69” (light on light on sacks), a group of large sacks piled against the wall with a strip of light cast on them, are examples of this controversial period. Many people still find much of this early work rather difficult to relate to but it is interesting in the way that it reflects the time it was made in. It also shows us how Barry almost had an art education in reverse, so to speak, by beginning with some very extreme experiments in modernism and then developing through a slow process into an artist preoccupied with traditional techniques and in producing more “representational” works.

The exhibition shows us his career developing through the 60s and 70s and into the 80s. We see examples of his unique exploration of the interaction of idea, form, material and process. We see Barry working in wood, clay, stone and metal as well as using “found” materials such as rope and wire.  We also learn that he had an interest in literature, poetry and in “pataphysics”. The final room comes as a real revelation when we see the development of his sculptural ideas into bronze casting and this space is dominated by a massive sculpture of a leaping hare on a geometric base of wooden slats  “Large leaping hare 1982”.

The exhibition was a real revaluation to the Bedales students. Many of whom spent a long time in the galleries making drawings and notes in their sketchbooks. When they now look out of their studio window and see Barry’s fine horse sculptures they will be able to understand the position of these works in the career of one of the country’s major modern artists. They will also have a better understanding of the incredible kindness and generosity that Barry showed in giving these pieces to the school.