This is most excellent stuff, <k>. Thank you. Your point, that the barnyard series broke through the head-and-heraldics tradition is well taken, but I agree with chrisild that Metcalfe brought an extra dimension to the design by going for strength of design, rather than natural detail. My favourite sculptor,
Botero, may have found inspiration here, four decades later.
Another point is the remark of the journalist of the Manchester Guardian:
I doubt if any country but Ireland would have had the imagination and freedom to lay down the conditions that would have made such designs possible.
Indeed, Ireland had a need to break away from the past, yet show its essence. That gave it unprecedented freedom, but also a duty to come up with something creative and intelligent. We owe these spectacular designs to a need to think differently and the strong guidance of the Yeats Committee as much as to Metcalfe.
Peter