Barry Flanagan was born in Prestatyn, in North Wales, on January 11, 1941. He attended Birmingham College of Arts and Crafts and St. Martin’s School of Art in London in 1964, graduating in 1966 with a diploma in sculpture. The same year, along with Yoko Ono and Anthony Cox, Flanagan took part in the Destruction in Art Symposium, held at Covent Garden’s Africa Centre, and had his first solo exhibition at the Rowan Gallery, London. From 1967 to 1971 he taught at St. Martin’s School of Art and at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. Flanagan traveled to New York for the first time in 1969 for a solo exhibition at the Fishbach Gallery, and the following year he exhibited in Japan.

During the 1970s, Flanagan experimented with etching and studied dance, taking courses with Carolyn Carlson. In 1977 the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven presented a retrospective of his work, a modified verson of which was later exhibited at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol and at the Serpentine Gallery in London. In 1979 he started creating a series of dynamic and often monumental bronze sculptures of hares, which frequently bore anthropomorphic traits. These were first exhibited in the early 1980s and soon became his most distinctive works. In 1982 he represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale and exhibited the sculptures he had made during the previous decade.

Flanagain gained mainstream attention in the 1980s, and received many public and private commissions. In 1984 his sculptures were installed in Watlington Park in Oxfordshire, at the Equitable Life Tower West in New York, and at Victoria Plaza in London. He moved to Ibiza in 1987 and in the same year was elected a member of the the Royal Academy of Art, London. In 1993 Flanagan was the subject of a major retrsopsective at the Fundación “La Caixa,” Madrid. The show traveled to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nantes the following year. His works are exhibited in several major public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, and the Tate Gallery, London. Flanagan died in Ibiza, Spain, on August 31, 2009.