Printed from Woolley & Wallis

Description

A carved wood Mallard duck decoy, painted in colours, a carved wood Moorhen decoy with applied metal stud eyes, and three other carved wood duck decoys unsigned, Moorhen with re-attached exhibition labels, 37cm. wide (5)

Provenance:

The Estate of Dame Elisabeth Frink and Lin Jammet

Exhibited:

Moorhen exhibited West Baton Rouge Historical Association, Nov/Dec 1976, no.109

Remembering Woolland

Tully Jammet

At Woolland, outside was a garden both wild and well-kept, dotted with towering, formidable figures that looked down on you. Artefacts from a time before me, I knew who had created them, but nothing more; perhaps how medieval Britons may have looked upon Roman remains.

Inside the house was the true story of Frink. Her life possessions, collected from all over the globe, many of which inspired and influenced her. All these pieces told the story of our world, both human and animal. These pieces were part of our personal life, just like they were for her when she cooked, listened to music or entertained her eclectic list of friends. They also presented a much more risky environment for a child to play indoor football, too.

Elisabeth Frink and Woolland

Annette Ratuszniak

former Curator of the Elisabeth Frink Estate and Archive

Woolland sits high on the chalk grasslands of the Dorset Downs, just below Bulbarrow Hill, with expansive views over Blackmore Vale. The sculptor Elisabeth Frink and her third husband Alex Csáky moved to Woolland House in 1976. The quiet rural domesticity and spaciousness suited them. They created a family home with a purpose-built studio. The extensive grounds enabled Frink to have her larger sculptures around her. As Lis explained to Edward Lucie-Smith during conversations recorded in the months before she died: ‘The house and garden are my gallery.’

There were two hearts to Woolland: the studio and the house. The studio was the private world where she gave form to her imagination through the images she created. Male figures, human heads and animal forms were fashioned using plaster, her hands and simple tools. The deeper meaning of each shape embodied her concerns about humanity: the tension between our capacity for aggression and our inherent vulnerability. She was preoccupied with our misplaced sense of superiority within the chain of life, the dangers of feeling invulnerable whatever our actions and our impact on the planet.

Frink’s sculptures, drawings and original prints established her reputation as one of Britain’s leading 20^th century sculptors. Exhibitions and public commissions were constant throughout her life. In recognition of her contribution to Britain’s cultural life she was made a Royal Academician, a Dame of the British Empire and awarded the Companion of Honour.

Lis and Alex lived at Woolland until their deaths within a few months of one another. Frink liked to go to the studio early most mornings: ‘I get up, have a swim, have my breakfast and go into the studio about eight, maybe a bit earlier. My mind works well in the morning, and in the evening I do something else – cooking, listening to music, things like that.’ Her need for quiet and privacy within the studio meant that unlike many sculptors she worked without assistants. Finished plasters were cast in small editions of bronzes with the help of specialist foundries and foundrymen, unless they were kept unique for a commission.

In the house, the other heart of Woolland, Lis and Alex constantly welcomed guests. Members of the family, friends, collectors and dealers, people connected with foundries and exhibitions all enjoyed lively meals at the long dining room table that dominated the main room, as well as parties round the pool. Lucie-Smith recalls that ‘no one was made to feel out of place or in the way’. Frink enjoyed cooking: ‘I married a Frenchman, so I learned the hard way.’ Her first husband, the architect Michel Jammet, came from a French family with a famous restaurant, Jammets, in Dublin. It was at this time that Frink’s interest in cooking was honed, as well as her political and social awareness as she listened to the writers, poets and filmmakers that frequented the restaurant.

In the late recordings Frink says: ‘I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve had very happy times with my family. I don’t resent the time I give up to running a household because I enjoy it so much.’ She liked to create ‘an interesting space to live in - that’s very important to me. I buy primitive furniture - old chairs and tables and cupboards - and I do look at them. I think they tie in very much with doing sculpture.’

The house was full of art: paintings and drawings exchanged with or as gifts from her contemporaries, and many studio ceramics. She also bought work by other artists ranging from Kandinsky and Moore to Taplin, and supported younger talents such as Nicola Hicks. After travelling to Australia, she began to acquire Aboriginal artworks as inspirations for colour and mark-making in her bronzes and drawings.

Everything was mingled with her own work. The house and garden reflected her life and pre-occupations as a sculptor.  Intimacy with her domestic environment was creatively useful. She was able to play with arrangements, groupings, see relationships of forms in different lights and observe juxtapositions and silhouettes. As Lucie-Smith wrote: ‘the interior was in its own way a self-portrait.’

In 1993, Elisabeth Frink died of cancer. In her last recordings she said prophetically: ‘The only thing now is that I wouldn’t throw all our stuff away… I might put it in a warehouse because I’d like my son to have it. Then he could do what he liked with it.’ After her death a detailed room-by-room inventory was made. It illustrates how she grouped within each room items of particular furniture, paintings and decorative works. Among the domesticity of the kitchen we find a pot by John Piper, two plates by Picasso, a watercolour by Julian Trevelyan and an Aboriginal bark painting.

Lin, his wife and young family stayed on at the house for a few years. When he sold Woolland most of the contents were packed into a large farm building at the home he established with his new partner. An area was sectioned off with controlled conditions for the storage of Frink artworks. The Elisabeth Frink Estate and Archive of sculptures, drawings and original prints was created and used for exhibitions and educational projects. The rest of her estate was left unpacked and stacked in the main floor and mezzanines of the barn.

Lin died suddenly in 2017. As curator of the Frink estate and archive I began the mammoth task of recording everything that had survived from Elisabeth Frink’s former home at Woolland. Methodically I embarked, with the help of my husband, on recording the contents of the barn in order to fulfil Lin’s wishes that his mother’s artworks, archive and studio materials be given to a spread of museums across the British Isles. Along with the thousands of artworks and archive material were mountains of unpacked boxes and furniture that had languished in the barn for years.

Lin had left to his sons, Tully and Bree, their grandmother’s chattels. Together we picked our way through years of dust, unpacked boxes and shrouded packages, never knowing what we would find. Among the chattels were more original plasters, studio contents, papers, photographs and other material that related to Frink’s life. This important historic material was identified, recorded and added to the artworks already destined for the beneficiary museums and the Frink Archive at the Dorset History Centre.

It was an emotional time for everyone involved, but one that had a positive outcome. A comprehensive range of Frink artworks and related materials is now in the care of ten public museums and galleries across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Dorset Museum, one of the beneficiaries, is creating the world’s first permanent display dedicated to Frink and her artworks as part of the Artists’ Dorset gallery within their newly redeveloped building.

During those two years of work it felt equally significant and moving that the objects and art that had surrounded her were being given a new life. These personal possessions eloquently and sensitively re-establish connections with the life and work of Elisabeth Frink, an extraordinary woman and artist.

May 2020

Recordings: Lucie-Smith, Edward and Frink, Elisabeth, Frink, A Portrait, Bloomsbury, London, 1994