Dame Elisabeth Frink, R.A. (1930-1993)

Running Man belongs to series of drawings which mark a turning point in Frink's career. 'These are images of running men, once again linked to a series of sculptures. The drawings often display radical simplification of form ... other wash drawings show the nude figures in profile. Several comparisons suggest themselves - some ancient, others comparatively modern. There is a resemblance, for example, to cave-paintings of the mesolithic (rather than the palaeolithic) epoch ... Another comparison is with runners on Greek black-figure vases, particularly those on Panathenaeac amphorae. Finally, there is a family likeness to the sequential photographs taken by the Victorian experimental photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Frink's running nudes, like his images, seem to represent successive phases of the same physical actions' (E. Lucie-Smith, Elisabeth Frink Sculpture Since 1984 and Drawings, London, 1994, pp. 137-138).