For Frink, the male body was a symbol of humanity in which she explored the complexity of the human condition, addressing the power, bravery, and splendour of mankind, but also human’s fundamental propensity for aggression, viciousness, and revulsion. As Frink largely eschewed the female form that she believed held too many traditional connotations of idealised beauty within the canon of Western art, her devotion to the portrayal of the male body set her apart from her contemporaries, and on a course to becoming one of the most interesting British sculptors of the Twentieth Century.
The model for Seated Man is likely to have been Frink’s husband Alex Csáky, as it, along with many of the monumental heads of the 1980s, seems to bear a distinct resemblance to his physiognomy. Frink regularly drew inspiration from those closest to her, her works often taking on facial characteristics of loved ones, with many also bearing a striking resemblance to herself. Seated Man, with its broad build, and rounded musculature, moves away from the lithe athletic physiques of Frink’s earlier male forms. The move towards this stockier, monumental, and particularly virile male form, finds continuation in her Seated Man II (1986) and her Riace Warriors (1986), which also veer away from the supple leathery surface of Seated Man and towards a highly textured finish. The genesis of these pieces was Frink’s experience of two fifth-century Greek bronze statues that had been discovered off the coast of Reggio Calabria in 1972:
‘I remember reading about the Riace warriors- how they were found in the sea off Calabria and brought to the surface. Then I remember them being on show in Florence. The original figures are very beautiful, but also sinister, and that is what they are supposed to be…’
In 1974 Frink settled in Dorset, setting up a new large studio; a transition that had a profound effect on her life and work. She wrote:
‘We wanted to move out of the city and into the country again. We eventually found the house in Dorset. This particular place influences my work directly because it is in a landscape I enjoy and feel uncluttered in, and because landscape has become essential to my work. Living in the country means being nearer to the elements, the climate and the changes of the seasons - it is a constant source of ideas.’
Perhaps as a consequence of the move, Frink began producing increasingly large works with wonderfully rich textured surfaces, created by applying wet plaster to an underlying armature and then carving into the surface once dry to achieve the desired effect. She became increasingly enthusiastic about her sculpture being shown in the open air, and was an early supporter of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, which hosted an open air retrospective of her work in 1983. Just larger than life-size, the scale of Seated Man gives the sculpture an imposing presence which arrests our attention and is beautifully accommodated by a natural outdoor setting.
