DAME ELISABETH FRINK, R.A. (1930-1993)

In the late 1960s Frink embarked upon a series of male busts in which the eyes are hidden by polished goggles. The concealed identity of these figures imbued them with a sense of menace and inscrutability, demonstrating Frink’s feelings about man’s potential for aggression and inhumanity.

Between 1967 and 1973 Frink was living in France and had become acquainted with the Pied-Noirs, French descendants expatriated from Algeria to France after the declaration of Algerian Independence in 1962. The image of General Oufkir, one of the Moroccan strongmen during the Algerian War, had a particular impact upon Frink: he ‘had an extraordinarily sinister face - always in dark glasses. These goggle heads became for me a symbol of evil and destruction in North Africa and, in the end, everywhere else' (see exhibition catalogue, Elisabeth Frink, Washington, D.C., National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1990, p. 53).