In 1981 Flanagan travelled to the Rodin Rediscovered retrospective at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the experience proved seminal. Rodin’s homage to the dancer Nijinski in ‘The Gates of Hell’ provided inspiration, and Flanagan drew concurrently on his own experience of dancing to make a series of Nijinski hares.
Here we have Small Nijinski Hare, acquired the year after it was cast by the National Museums and Galleries of Wales. Flanagan, who is perhaps best known for his bronze hares, referred to them as “surrogate figures”.