About

Elisabeth Frink’s 19 Etchings are an illustrative take on Geoffrey Chaucers’s raucous tales, told from a dissection of society as they made the pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket. From the clergy to the nobility and peasantry, the stories dip from vulgarity to morality. Frink cut and carved each copper plate, which was weathered and bitten by acid until the three-dimensional plane of stipelled surface picked up the ink. Frink’s style is primal, naturalistic, conveying the spirit of the story through the naked form, animals and elements. This contrasts to the societal hierarchies …