NEW HAVEN-Visitors to the Yale Center for British Art, home to one of the world's great collections of British animal paintings and portraits, regularly encounter lions, horses, zebras, and dogs, as well as fantastical griffins and unicorns. This November, a special exhibition opening at the Center will bring several contemporary works by the British sculptor Nicola Hicks into conversation with eighteenth- and early nineteenthcentury paintings from the Center's collection.

Located in the Center's fourth-floor galleries, Sculpture by Nicola Hicks will feature seven of Hicks's striking creatures. Typically executed in straw and plaster, and often cast into bronze, the sculptures selected for the Center's exhibition, including two from her recent Aesop's Fables series, were all made in the past decade and exemplify her long-standing interest in capturing the emotional essence of living beings. Hicks has chosen works from the Center's collection to pair with her own sculptures, based on her personal, subjective responses to historic paintings.