The Frink School of Figurative Sculpture was named after Elisabeth Frink (1930–1993), British Sculptor, and was a small intimate academy with a specific discipline of study closer in spirit to a master and apprentice structure than an educational institution. Directed by the British Sculptor Rosemary Barnett, other sculptors involved in its educational role included Harry Everington, Alan Thornhill, Ken Ford and the painter Jack Skinner.
Its prime aim and charitable purpose was to provide an education in the observational and technical disciplines of figurative sculpture and to support and encourage the creative potential revealed in the process.
Harry Everington met Rosemary Barnett in 1990 at the Sir Henry Doulton School of Sculpture in Stoke on Trent. When, in 1993, the funding was removed from the Doulton School, they both set about establishing a successor to it, which would try to give some balance to the trend towards conceptual work in Sculpture Schools. The school covered every aspect of figurative sculpture, including welding, carving in wood and stone, letter cutting, mould-making and casting – in addition to modelling in clay.
The Frink School opened in 1996 in Longton, moving to The Old Court in Roundwell Street, Tunstall in 1999.
Initially running a two year full time course, about 4–9 students entered the School per year. It ceased running full-time courses in 2005.
The tutorial direction was more concerned with revelation in sculpture than its viability in the art market or the gallery. Just for two years of their lives, the members of this community were expected to search with perception and imagination and find sculptural means to express that which they could discover. It is expected that this will serve them for the rest for their lives.[1]
Associates of the school include British artists Ruth Addinall[2], Anthony Beetlestone[3], John Sydney Carter FRBS[4], Jon Edgar[5], David Klein, Rita Phillips, Caro Sweet[6], Sarah Smith[7], Sophie White, and Simon Everington[8] based in Japan, and American sculptor Kerry O'Neil Furlani[9].