by Marie Via
 |
| FAWN |
One of the easily
overlooked treasures of the Gallery's collection is John B. Flanagan’s
(1895-1942) small granite Fawn (74.2) nestled among the ferns
in the Sculpture Pavilion. Its rough surface and compressed fetal form
give the impression of an animal emerging from some secret place within the
rock, rather than being carved from it. Indeed, the artist spent long
hours combing the fields near Woodstock, NY for stones that approximated the
shape of the figure he had in mind, which he then "released" from the
rock through subtle shaping.
Animals were Flanagan’s
favorite subjects, and he preferred the stubbornness of stone to the
"deadly facility" of wood. His works are best understood when
seen from all points of view; their rounded shapes curve back upon themselves
to express the artist's fascination with the circle, an ancient symbol of
eternity.
Flanagan’s brief life
was marked by hardship. His father died in 1990, when Flanagan was five,
forcing his poverty- stricken mother to place the boy in an orphanage for a
number of years. At 19 he enrolled at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and
held down three jobs to support himself, his mother, and his brother. He
moved to New York, and after months of sleeping in the subway was rescued by
the generosity of painter Arthur B. Davies, who gave him a job and helped him
secure gallery representation.
The artist's existence
became devoted almost solely to freeing "the image in the
rock." This absorption led to a nervous breakdown in 1934, after
which he was confined to a sanitarium for seven months and not allowed to
work. He sculpted madly upon his release, drinking heavily to obliterate
exhaustion. A few years later, he was the victim of a hit-and-run accident;
a series of brain surgeries could not fully restore his powers of coordination,
speech, and balance. Suffering a deep despair over his inability to work,
Flanagan committed suicide in 1942, just six months before his scheduled
retrospective at the Bucholz Gallery in New York.
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