Barry Flanagan OBE RA (11 January 1941 – 31 August 2009) was a Welsh sculptor. He is best known for his bronze statues of hares and other animals.

Barry Flanagan was born on 11 January 1941 in Prestatyn, in North Wales. From 1957 to 1958 he studied architecture at Birmingham College of Art and Crafts. He studied sculpture at Saint Martin’s School of Art in London from 1964 to 1966, and from 1967 to 1971 taught both at Saint Martin’s and at the Central School of Art and Design.

He became an Irish Citizen and lived in Dublin since 2000. Flanagan died on 31 August 2009 of motor neurone disease.

He was the subject of a biographical film by Peter Bach, The Man Who Sculpted Hares: Barry Flanagan, A Life.

‘Poet of the Building Site’ by Robin Marchesi. A book on his life with Barry Flanagan was published by The Irish Museum of Modern Art 2011