Barry Flanagan is known for his dynamic, often monumental bronze hares (a specific type of wild rabbit) performing all variety of human feats, from thinking to playing music to using technology. In many cultures, and particularly that of Flanagan’s native Wales, the hare or rabbit has mythological significance as a powerful shapeshifter with ties to the underworld. Other cultures around the globe see the hare as a trickster or mischief-maker, an aspect discernable in popular culture with characters such as the White Rabbit that led Alice astray in Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland stories or Warner Brothers’ Bugs Bunny, all of which appealed to Flanagan. The artist explains: "I find that the hare is a rich and expressive form that can carry the conventions of the cartoon and the attributes of the human into the animal world. So I use the hare as a surrogate or as a vehicle to entertain in a way. The abstract realm that sculpture somehow demands is a very awkward way to work so I abstract myself from the human figure, choosing the hare to behave as a human occasionally.” (1)  

The hare first appeared in the artist’s work in the late 1970s after Flanagan saw a hare running across the countryside. He drew further inspiration from George Ewart Evans and David Thomson’s 1972 book, The Leaping Hare, which explored mythology and folklore surrounding the animal. Flanagan’s hares are distinctly styled, with long, thin limbs and ears and can resemble stick figures or line drawings in space. Despite the human actions they sometimes display, they are not heavily anthropomorphized, and their faces do not often betray emotion or expression. Flanagan has stated that he deliberately turned from the human figure to avoid portraiture.(2) Thinker on a Rock riffs on French artist Auguste Rodin’s (1840–1917) famous and often caricatured The Thinker, a sculpture portraying the poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) contemplating his 14th century work, The Divine Comedy. In Flanagan’s version, the writer is replaced with the hare engaged in the act of earnest contemplation, resulting in a humorous contrast. The quirky tone set forth by the hare presents an intriguing contradiction to the seriousness of the traditional technique — bronze casting. Just as Rodin’s Thinker was cast in metal, so is Flanagan’s, which challenges the classic concept of the heroic bronze figure. In his substitution of great man for large rabbit, Flanagan uses artmaking as his method of shapeshifting and trickery.

(2) Adrian Dannatt, “Interview with Barry Flanagan on his fascination with bronze: A tradesman, not an artist,” The Art Newspaper 14 (March 2004), 28.