Celebrating Barbara Hepworth
Barbara Hepworth
Aegean, 1956
Bronze
27.9 x 22.9 x 27.9 cm
11 x 9⅛ x 11 in.
Edition 6 of 6
“The dominant feeling will always be the love of humanity and nature; and the love of sculpture for itself.”
- Barbara Hepworth
Today we are celebrating the work and life of Dame Barbara Hepworth, born on this day in 1903. A British sculptor of global importance, Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture and legacy touches all who experience it.
Upon completing her degree at the Royal College of Art in 1924, Barbara Hepworth was awarded a West Riding travel scholarship, enabling her to travel to Italy where she learned to carve wood and stone. In 1939, Hepworth relocated to St Ives with her husband, Ben Nicholson, and their children. Here, the Cornish landscape played an integral role in her work, fundamentally influencing the natural curves, forms, texture and weight of her sculpture. From the 1950s onwards, Hepworth began to sculpt with a wider range of materials, including brass and bronze. In 1965, she was appointed a DBE, and in 1970, became a Senior Fellow at the Royal College of Art.
The New Art Centre at Roche Court Sculpture Park has represented the Barbara Hepworth Estate for three decades. Hepworth’s desire to bring the physicality and vitality of the landscape into her work makes the presentation of her sculpture at Roche Court particularly poignant. A varied collection of sculpture by Hepworth is currently available to view in our Artists House.
Barbara Hepworth
Four Forms, 1974
Brass
34 x 21 x 21 cm
1ft 1 ½ x 8 ¼ x 8 ¼ in.
Cast 0 from an edition of 9
“All my early memories are forms of shapes and textures. Moving through and over the West Riding landscape with my father in his car, the hills were sculptures; the roads defined the form. Above all, there was the sensation of moving physically over the contours of fulnesses and concavities, through hollows and over peaks – feeling, touching, seeing, through mind and hand and eye. This sensation has never left me. I, the sculptor, am the landscape. I am the form as I am the hollow, the thrust and the contour.”
– Barbara Hepworth in her autobiography, Barbara Hepworth: A Pictorial Autobiography, 1969, p.9.
Barbara Hepworth
Barbara Hepworth's Hand, (1943-44) 1967
Bronze
10.2 x 12.7 x 22.8 cm
4 x 5 x 9 in.
Edition 7 of 7
Hepworth at work on the first stage of the prototype for the United Nations Single Form, Palais de Danse, January 1963. Photograph: Studio St Ives © Bowness
Barbara Hepworth completed several major public commissions in her lifetime, including Winged Figure (1961-2) for John Lewis, Oxford Street, London, and her iconic Single Form (1961-4) for the United Nations Building, New York. Her work can be found in many global public spaces and collections, including the Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, Brazil; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, USA; the Courtauld Institute Galleries, London; the British Council, London and the Tate, London, among many others.
In St Ives, Cornwall, Hepworth’s second studio, The Palais de Danse is a remarkable building that was used by Barbara as a space to work on her largest sculptures, and contains the footprint of Single Form. It was given to the Tate by the Hepworth Estate in 2015, and following completion of its restoration, is destined to be a public space for learning, which we hope will be used worldwide.
May 2025 will be the 50th anniversary of Barbara Hepworth’s death. A significant exhibition of her work will open on the 28th of June at the Fondation Maeght, Saint Paul de Vence, France.
Barbara Hepworth
Sea Forms, 1969
Signed 'Barbara Hepworth' (lower right) and editioned '15/60' (lower left)
Lithograph printed in colours on wove paper
Framed: 71.5 x 94 cm / 2ft 4 x 3ft 1 in.
Unframed: 59.2 x 82 cm / 1ft 11 x 2ft 8 ¼ in.
Edition 15 of 60
Barbara Hepworth
Squares and Circles (Curwen Prints), 1969
Unsigned, unnumbered AP from a suite of 12 Lithographs
Lithograph on handmade Barcham Green paper
Framed: 68.5 x 91 cm / 2ft 3 x 2ft 11 ¾ in.
Unframed: 58.5 x 81.4 cm / 1ft 11 x 2ft 8 in.
Unsigned, unnumbered AP from a suite of 12 Lithographs
Get in touch via email at nac@sculpture.uk.com, or by telephone at +44 (0)1980 862244, to enquire about available works by Barbara Hepworth.
We are proud to have exhibited three figures from Hepworth's Family of Man at Roche Court Sculpture Park in 2021.
Three figures from Barbara Hepworth's Family of Man (conceived 1970, cast 1972) exhibited on the lawn at Roche Court Sculpture Park in 2021.