Barbara Hepworth

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Barbara Hepworth bigraphy, stories - English sculptor

Barbara Hepworth : biography

10 January 1903 – 20 May 1975 aged 72

Dame Barbara Hepworth DBE (10 January 1903 – 20 May 1975) was an English sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism, and with such contemporaries as Ivon Hitchens, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo she helped to develop modern art (sculpture in particular) in Britain.

Galleries holding her work

Hepworth’s former studio and home now form the Barbara Hepworth Museum. A new £35 million museum dedicated to Hepworth, the Hepworth Wakefield, opened in Britain in May 2011 at Wakefield in West Yorkshire. ARTINFO.com

Her work may also be seen at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, the School of Music at Cardiff University, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Bretton, West Yorkshire; Clare College, Churchill College and Murray Edwards College (formerly New Hall), Cambridge; Snape Maltings, Snape, Suffolk; and on view in or attached to the John Lewis department store, part of the John Lewis Partnership, in Oxford Street (see picture); and Kenwood House, both in London. Seaform (Atlantic) may be viewed in a newly created open space on St George’s Street Norwich; it has been seen to be used by the Norwich parcour group to hang from horizontally and move through its apertures as part of their own physical urban art form (the sculpture was relocated from the Norwich Castle gardens for fear the precious bronze would be stolen and melted down for scrap). Her 1966 work, Construction (Crucifixion): Homage to Mondrian, can be seen in the grounds of Winchester Cathedral next to The Pilgrims’ School; Hieroglyph can be seen at Leeds Art Gallery. The Tate Gallery owns many of her works. In the Netherlands, the Kröller-Müller Museum also owns several of her sculptures. Curved Form (Trevalgan) (1956), which stood in Margaret Gardiner’s rear garden in Hampstead, is now at the Pier Art Gallery in Stromness together with 67 other works donated by Gardiner. Trevalgan was Hepworth’s first entire bronze form.

Marble portrait heads dating from London, ca. 1927, of Barbara Hepworth by John Skeaping, and of Skeaping by Hepworth, are documented by photograph in the Skeaping Retrospective catalogue,John Skeaping 1901–80: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Arthur Ackermann and Son, London, 1991, page 7 but are both believed to be lost.

List of selected works

1928 Doves Parian marble
1932–33 Seated Figure lignum vitae
1933 Two Forms
alabaster and limestone
1934 Mother and Child Cumberland alabaster 1935 Three Forms Seravezza marble 1936 Ball Plane and Hole lignum vitae, mahogany and oak 1937 Pierced Hemisphere 1 white marble 1940 Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red) mixed 1943 Oval Sculpture cast material 1943–44 Wave wood, paint and string 1944 Landscape Sculpture wood (cast in bronze, 1961) 1946 Pelagos wood, paint and string Tides wood and paint 1947 Blue and green (arthroplasty) 31 December 1947 oil and pencil on pressed paperboard 1949 Operation: Case for Discussion oil and pencil on pressed paperboard 1951 Group I (Concourse) 4 February 1951 Serravezza marble 1953 Hieroglyph Ancaster stone 1954–55 Two Figures teak and paint 1955 Oval Sculpture (Delos) scented guarea wood and paint 1955–56 Coré bronze 1956 Curved Form (Trevalgan) bronze (see external link to collection of Margaret Gardiner) 1956 Orpheus (Maquette), Version II brass and cotton string Stringed Figure (Curlew), Version II brass and cotton string 1958 Cantate Domino bronze Sea Form (Porthmeor) bronze 1959 Curved form with inner form – anima bronze 1960 Figure for Landscape bronze Archaeon bronze 1961 Curved Form (Bryher) bronze 1962–63 Bronze Form (Patmos) bronze 19663 Winged Figure bronze 1963-65 Sphere with Inner Form bronze 1964 Rock Form (Porthcurno) bronze Sea Form (Atlantic) bronze Oval Form (Trezion) bronze 1966 Figure in a Landscape bronze on wooden base Four-Square Walk Through bronze 1968 Two Figures bronze and gold 1969 Two Forms (Divided Circle) bronze 1970 Family of Man bronze 1971 The Aegean Suite series of prints Summer Dance painted bronze 1972 Minoan Head marble on wooden base Assembly of Sea Forms white marblemounted on stainless steel base 1973? Conversation with Magic Stones bronze and silver