(1930-1993)
Back in Harlow.
With no great offence to Harlow, I wasn’t planning to re-visit the town. But seeing it in daylight as opposed to the December early night is a better way to enjoy the space. What I didn’t pick up on last year, was that it held the title of the world’s first ‘Sculpture Town’ in 2010 and a large abstract piece along the dual carriageway welcomes me into the place.
My visit around Christmas last year saw me proudly ticking off 5 statues only to realise somewhere north on the M1 and around 200 miles away that I had missed one off the list.
No big deal, I guess. There’s a statue to a woman named Julia to see at the Harlow Playhouse – a replica had been previously viewed last year, tucked away in a quiet in a cul-de-sac. Yes, it is a named statue although fictional but I’m in Harlow and it’s rude not to. I pass by the water gardens where Elisabeth Frink’s ‘Boar’ stands, floating above the water. Nearby there is ‘Eve’ by Rodin. Auguste Rodin! In Harlow! There’s also ‘Kora’ – a fictional female statue tucked away on the high street.
But enough digression. I can’t miss this one again.
Sculptor and printmaker, Elisabeth had early success, selling work to the Tate Gallery when she was still a 21 year-old student at Chelsea College of Art. Much of her work features animals, male nudes and nature, with her last work being the ‘Risen Christ’ for Liverpool Cathedral installed a week before she died in 1993.
Elisabeth already stands tall outside Coventry’s Herbert Gallery but the original cast is a grade II listed piece purchased by Harlow Art Trust soon after it was created. I check the sites, use Google maps, but am struggling to find it. I flag down a couple who seem slightly embarrassed (in the way that only Brits can be) when they cannot help locate it. But they needn’t be. I return to where I think it should be and there I spot it. Or at least I spot the spot. A traffic cone perched on an empty plinth (another quintessentially British gesture). There’s no mistaking that this is where she should be. Frustrating. But is it art?
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