Sotheby’s S|2 Gallery is proud to present Animal Farm: Beastly Muses and Metaphors, an exhibition that explores the multifaceted relationship between man and animal. From the beginning of recorded human history animals have been embedded in man’s psyche, represented in literature, music, religion and astrology. Through artistic expression in particular, animals often serve as metaphors for our own intrinsic human characteristics.

With such a primordial connection, it is unsurprising that some of the greatest artists of modern times have used animals as their muses, often, returning time and time again to the same creatures, in an almost compulsive study. As is the case with many of the artists in Animal Farm: Beastly Muses and Metaphors, the animals of their attention ultimately act as metaphors for their deeper artistic explorations: mortality, memory, identity, religion and the human body.