Frink, Dame Elisabeth (1930-1993),
British sculptor, the most successful of her generation. She achieved great popularity through her monumental figurative sculptures and obtained important public commissions in both Britain and the United States.

Born into an upper-middle-class family in Thurlow, Suffolk, England, Frink studied at the Guildford School of Art from 1947 to 1949 and, under British sculptor Bernard Meadows, at the Chelsea School of Art from 1949 to 1953. In 1952 the Tate Gallery in London purchased one of her sculptures, now known as Tate Bird (1952), and in the following year she won a prize in a sculptural competition, also held at the Tate. Her growing international reputation was marked by a commission in 1964 for a John F. Kennedy memorial in Dallas, Texas. Apart from a period in the Camargue region of southern France from 1967 to 1973, Frink spent all her life in Britain, eventually settling in Dorset.

The recurrent themes of Frink's career are exemplified by the series of Bird sculptures that she produced until 1969. The powerful, threatening bodies of these creatures, with their simple forms and rough, expressive surfaces, are heroic symbols of strength and aggression. Frink worked quickly, constructing her sculptures, usually in plaster rather than clay, over an iron armature (underlying framework), before casting the finished work in bronze. She was also an accomplished printmaker, producing etchings and lithographs for illustrated books.

While living in the Camargue, Frink became fascinated by the wild horses of that region, which inspired many sculptures in the following years, including the Horse and Rider (1974) which stands in Dover Street, London. This harmonious composition contrasts greatly with the menacing Goggle Heads (1967), a series of sculptures, begun while Frink was living in France, that were inspired by photographs of soldiers wearing sinister-looking dark glasses.

Although Frink's work is dominated by images of male figures, in 1981 she produced a strident female figure, Walking Madonna, to be installed outside of Salisbury Cathedral. This work was one of several prominent religious commissions. Despite her success, Frink's emphasis on figurative art set her apart from the more avant-garde and abstract British sculptors of the period, and she received mixed reviews from art critics.