This plaster sculpture may have been a maquette, intended to cast a final bronze sculpture.
The sculptor Helen Biggar studied at GSA from 1925, gaining her diploma in Textile Design in 1929. She continued to study sculpture at GSA until 1931.
Biggar is also known for her film collaborations with the Glasgow Kino Film Group, and director and animator, Norman McLaren. The politically active Kino Group created films such as Hell Unltd (1936) and Challenge to Fascism: Glasgow’s Mayday (1938), which brought attention to Biggar’s deeply held left wing values.
Biggar’s sculpture, Faun has delicately moulded features, yet creates the rushing sense of movement in its pose and upswept forms. Biggar created a similar pairing of sharpness and sensitivity in her films, which use assemblages of found-footage, title cards and animation.
We hold a wide range of Helen Biggar’s works in our collection, including sculpture, photographs, drawings and handwritten documents. Many of these works have been the subject of a recent digitization project, which can be viewed in our catalogue.
