'Leda & the Hatpin', by Linda Crook, 2003

Linda Crook has rethought the ancient Greek myth about the God Jupiter who changes himself into a swan and makes an unwelcome visit to Leda, wife of the King of Sparta.

 

The artist has written, ‘I wanted to make a set of three medals around three Greek myths, which I felt needed some reworking. I wanted to free the women in them from the role of “victim”. In Leda and the Hat Pin we see the concluding episode of the story, hitherto unpublished. The swan is unable to escape being made into a fancy hat – which Leda tidies up nicely with a hat pin'.

More about the artist

Linda Crook is based in London and has exhibited extensively in Britain and abroad. She has work in the collections of the British Museum and The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, having recently completed a portrait medal of Richard Came, the Company’s Prime Warden.

 

Thoughts about her medals

‘Medals address the intimate space between the observer and the object, making it legitimate to involve the sense of touch. Just as one can walk round and around sculpture, so it is possible to turn the medal round and around in the hand. It is possible to encapsulate a world of myth or dream or poetry in one small object. I shall continue to produce medals because of the endless fascination and challenge to be found in their making’.

Linda Crook, 2003

‘Linda Crook is a figurative artist combining imagination with personal experience. She refers to a wide cultural vocabulary from Giotto to Brancusi. Her love of irony and the ambiguities of language follow a great English tradition.’

Professor Ronald Pennell, medallist, glass and gem engraver. 1997