Barbara hepworth biography sculpture park

English artist and sculptor (–)

Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth (10 January – 20 May ) was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture.^[1] Along with artists such as Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a leading figure in the colony of artists who resided in St Ives during the Second World War.

Born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, Hepworth studied at Leeds School of Art and the Royal College of Art in the s. She married the sculptor John Skeaping in In she fell in love with the painter Ben Nicholson, and in divorced Skeaping. At this time she was part of a circle of modern artists centred on Hampstead, London, and was one of the founders of the art movement Unit One.

At the beginning of the Second Nature War Hepworth and Nicholson moved to St Ives, Cornwall, where she would remain for the rest of her life. Top known as a sculptor, Hepworth also produced drawings – including a series of sketches of operating rooms following the hospitalisation of her daughter in – and lithographs.

She died in a fire at her studio in

Biography

Early life

Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was born on 10 January in Wakefield, West Riding of Yorkshire, the eldest child of Gertrude and Herbert Hepworth.^[2] Her father was a civil engineer for the West Riding County Council, who in advanced to the role of county surveyor.^[2] Hepworth attended Wakefield Girls' Upper School, where she was awarded music prizes at the age of 12^[3][4] and won a scholarship to study at the Leeds School of Art from It was there that she met her fellow Yorkshireman, Henry Moore.^[2] They became friends and established a friendly rivalry that lasted professionally for many years.

Despite the difficulties of attempting to gain a position in what was a male-dominated environment,^[5] Hepworth successfully won a county scholarship to attend the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London and studied there from until she was awarded the diploma of the Royal College of Art in ^[6]

Early career

Following her studies at the RCA, Hepworth travelled to Florence, Italy, in on a West Riding Travel Scholarship.^[1] Hepworth was also the runner-up for the Prix-de-Rome, which the sculptor John Skeaping won.^[1] After travelling with him to Siena and Rome, Hepworth married Skeaping in May in Florence.^[2] In Italy, Hepworth learned how to carve marble from sculptor Giovanni Ardini.^[2] Hepworth and Skeaping returned to London in , where they exhibited their works together from their flat.^[2] Their son Paul was born in London in ^[1] In , Hepworth met and fell in love with abstract painter Ben Nicholson; however, both were still married at the time.^[8] Hepworth filed for divorce from Skeaping that year;^[9] they were divorced in March ^[2]

Her preceding work was highly interested in abstraction and art movements on the continent.

In , Hepworth was the first to sculpt the pierced figures that are characteristic of both her have work and, later, that of Henry Moore.^[10] They would manage in the path to modernism in sculpture.

In , Hepworth travelled with Nicholson to France, where they visited the studios of Jean Arp, Pablo Picasso, and Constantin Brâncuși.^[2] Hepworth later became involved with the Paris-based art movement, Abstraction-Création.^[11] In , Hepworth co-founded the Unit One art movement with Nicholson and Paul Nash, the critic Herbert Read, and the architect Wells Coates.^[12] The movement sought to unite Surrealism and abstraction in British art.^[12]

Hepworth also helped hoist awareness of continental artists amongst the British public.

In , she designed the layout for Circle: An International Survey of Constructivist Art, a page novel that surveyed Constructivist artists and that was published in London and edited by Nicholson, Naum Gabo, and Leslie Martin.^[13]

Hepworth, with Nicholson, gave birth to triplets in Rachel, Sarah, and Simon.

Hepworth, atypically, found a way to both take care of her children and continue producing her art. "A woman artist", she argued, "is not deprived by cooking and having children, nor by nursing children with measles (even in triplicate)&#;– one is in fact nourished by this rich life, provided one always does some work each day; even a single half hour, so that the images grow in one's mind."^[14] Hepworth married Nicholson on 17&#;November at Hampstead Register Office in north London, following his divorce from his wife Winifred.^[15] Rachel and Simon also became artists.^[16]

St Ives

Hepworth, Nicholson and their children went to live in Cornwall at the outbreak of the Second World War in ^[17][18] She lived in Trewyn Studios in St Ives from until her death in Trewyn Studios had once been an outbuilding of Trewyn House, later purchased by her pupil and assistant John Milne in ^[19][17] She said that "Finding Trewyn Studio was sort of magic.

Here was a studio, a yard, and garden where I could function in open air and space."^[17] St Ives had become a refuge for many artists during the war. On 8 February , Hepworth and Nicholson co-founded the Penwith Society of Arts at the Castle Inn; 19 artists were founding members, including Peter Lanyon and Bernard Leach.

^[20]

Hepworth was also a skilled draughtsperson. After her daughter Sarah was hospitalised in , she struck up a close friendship with the surgeon Norman Capener.^[21] At Capener's invitation, she was invited to view surgical procedures and, between and , she produced nearly 80 drawings of operating rooms in chalk, ink, and pencil.^[21][22] Hepworth was fascinated by the similarities between surgeons and artists, stating: "There is, it seems to me, a close affinity between the operate and approach of both physicians and surgeons, and painters and sculptors."^[21]

In , works by Hepworth were exhibited in the British Pavilion at the XXV Venice Biennale^[2] alongside works by Matthew Smith and John Constable.^[23] The Biennale was the last moment that contemporary British artists were exhibited alongside artists from the past.^[23] Two early public commissions, Contrapunctal Forms and Turning Forms, were exhibited at the Festival of Britain in ^[24][25]

During this period, Hepworth and Nicholson divorced ().^[16] Hepworth moved away from working only in stone or wood and began to serve with bronze and clay.^[17] Hepworth often used her garden in St Ives, which she planned with her friend the composer Priaulx Rainier, to view her large-scale bronzes.^[17]

Death of her son Paul

Her eldest son Paul was killed on 13 February in a plane crash while serving with the Royal Air Violence in Thailand.^[27] A memorial to him, Madonna and Child, is in the parish church of St Ives.^[28]

Exhausted, in part from her son's death, Hepworth travelled to Greece with her partner Margaret Gardiner in August ^[27] They visited Athens, Delphi and many of the Aegean Islands.^[27]

When Hepworth returned to St Ives from Greece in August she found that Gardiner had sent her a large shipment of Nigerian guarea hardwood.^[27] Although she received only a single trunk trunk, Hepworth noted that the shipment from Nigeria to the Tilbury docks came in at 17 tons.^[27] Between and Hepworth sculpted six pieces out of guarea wood, many of which were inspired by her trip to Greece, such as Corinthos () and Curved Form (Delphi) ().^[27]

Ambivalent burden of international reputation

It was also during this decade that Hepworth became preoccupied with the idea of establishing a market base for her operate in the United States.

Initially she hoped to follow Henry Moore's successful sale of artwork via Curt Valentin of Bucholz Gallery in New York. Negotiations with Valentin did result in a number of American sales, but despite the sales, and despite interventions by Hepworth's friends, Valentin rebuffed repeated requests to hold any substantial stock of her work.

It was not until , after the Martha Jackson Gallery had offered Hepworth the opportunity to exhibit in their space alongside works by William Scott and Francis Bacon, that Hepworth formalised gallery voice in the new world.^[29]

Hepworth's difficulties in establishing a stable gallery relationship in the United States have been attributed to many factors, including the artist's have diffidence regarding personal promotion of her work.

When Martha Jackson failed to arrange the solo American exhibition of sculptures and drawings that Hepworth demanded, Hepworth moved, in , to Galerie Chalette, run by Arthur and Madeleine Lejwa, known for their close relationship with Jean Arp, and dedication to close relationships with their artists.^[30]

The Lejwas came through with the solo exhibition Hepworth craved.^[29] Hepworth came to New York for the opening (her first visit to the city),^[31] but made minimal contact with the press and left as soon as possible.

"Have seen all the press", she wrote, "pulled faces at the camera and generally done my best!"^[29]

Three years later, having secured the Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Commission (Single Form, ), she left both Chalette and Gimpel Fils, her long-time home agent, for the larger Marlborough Fine Art and Marlborough-Gerson.

"Pulled between personal loyalties and professional aspirations", Hepworth chose to forfeit the personal relationships.^[32]

Late career

Hepworth greatly increased her studio space in when she purchased the Palais de Danse, a former cinema and boogie hall, that was situated across the street from Trewyn.

She used this new space to work on large-scale commissions.^[33]

She also experimented with lithography in her late career, and produced two lithographic suites with the Curwen Gallery and its director Stanley Jones, one in and one in ^[34] The latter was entitled "The Aegean Suite" () and was inspired by Hepworth's trip to Greece in with Margaret Gardiner.^[35] The artist also produced a set of lithographs entitled "Opposing Forms" () with Marlborough Fine Art in London.^[35]

Barbara Hepworth died in an accidental fire at her Trewyn studios on 20 May at the age of ^[36]

Famous sculptures

In Hepworth was commissioned by the Arts Council to create a piece for the Festival of Britain.^[37] The resulting work featured two Irish limestone figures entitled, "Contrapuntal Forms" (), which was displayed on London's South Bank;^[37][38] it was later donated to the New Town of Harlow and displayed in Glebelands, where it remains.

To complete the large-scale piece Hepworth hired her first assistants, Terry Frost, Denis Mitchell, and John Wells.^[37]

From onwards she worked with assistants, 16 in all.^[39] One of her most prestigious works is Single Form,^[40] which was made in memory of her friend and collector of her works, the former Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, and which stands in the plaza of the United Nations building in New York City.^[14] It was commissioned by Jacob Blaustein, a former United States delegate to the U.N., in monitoring Hammarskjöld's death in a plane crash.^[41]

On 20 December , her sculpture Two Forms was stolen from its plinth in Dulwich Park, South London.

Suspicions are that the theft was by scrap metal thieves. The piece, which had been in the park since , was insured for £,, a spokesman for Southwark Council said.^[42]

One of the editions of six of her bronze sculpture, Rock Form (Porthcurno), was removed from the Mander Centre in Wolverhampton in the spring of by its owners, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Dalancey Estates.

Its sudden disappearance led to questions in Parliament in September Paul Uppal, Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South West said: "When the Rock Form was donated by the Mander family, it was done so in the doctrine it would be enjoyed and cherished by the people of Wolverhampton for generations It belongs to, and should be enjoyed by, the City of Wolverhampton." The sculpture has since been loaned to the city by RBS and can be seen in Wolverhampton City Art Gallery.

Recognition

Hepworth was awarded the Grand Prix at the São Paulo Art Biennial.^[1] She was awarded the Freedom of St Ives in as an acknowledgment of her significant contributions to the town;^[1] she was a member of the St Ives Belief (which sought to protect the town's character and architectural heritage), a founder member of the 'Art in Schools' programme dash by Cornwall County Council, and had gifted several sculptures to the town.^{[43]:&#;95&#;} The same year, she was inducted into Gorsedh Kernow with the bardic nameGravyor (meaning "Sculptor")^[44] – this was described as an "extraordinary honour" given that she was not a Cornish native.^{[43]:&#;18&#;} She was awarded honorary degrees from the universities of Birmingham (), Leeds (), Exeter (), Oxford (), London () and Manchester ().^[15]

She was appointed CBE in and DBE in ^[15][45] In she was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.^[46] Following her death, her studio and place in St Ives became the Barbara Hepworth Museum, which came under control of the Tate in ^[1]

In The Hepworth Wakefield opened in Hepworth's hometown of Wakefield, England.

The Museum was designed by the architect David Chipperfield.^[47]

In January Tate Britain staged a major retrospective with over 70 of Hepworth's works. The first large London show since , it included her well-known major abstract carvings and bronzes, as well as previously unseen photographs and a s self-photogram.^[48]

On 25 August , Google honoured Hepworth with a Google Doodle.^[49] A Historic Englandblue plaque was unveiled in honour of Hepworth and first husband John Skeaping at 24 St Ann's Terrace, St John's Wood, London on 30 October The couple lived there in ^[50][51]

Hepworth's work was included in the exhibition Women in Abstraction at the Centre Pompidou.^[52]

The first major survey of Hepworth's work, Barbara Hepworth: In Equilibrium was held at Heide Museum of Modern Art in Melbourne from 5 November to 13 March ^[53] Her labor had a wide influence on Australian sculpture.^[54]

Gallery

• Winged Figure, , on the side of the John Lewis department store, Holles Highway and Oxford Street, London.

• Sphere with Inner Form, , at the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands.

• Achaean, c.

  , at St Catherine's College, Oxford.

• Dual Form at St Ives Guildhall.

• Rock Form (Porthcurno), , Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

• Construction (Crucifixion): Homage to Mondrian, , outside Winchester Cathedral.

• Three Obliques (Walk In), , at Cardiff University University of Music

• Four-Square (Walk Through), , Churchill College, Cambridge.

• Curved Reclining Establish (Rosewall), –62, Chesterfield, Derbyshire

• Summer Dance, , at the Harrison Sculpture Garden, Minnesota Landscape Arboretum

List of selected works

Year(s)	Title	Material	Notes
	Doves	Parian marble	[55]
–33	Seated Figure	lignum vitae
	Two Forms	alabaster and limestone
	Mother and Child	Cumberlandalabaster	[55]
	Three Forms	Seravezzamarble
	Ball Plane and Hole	lignum vitae, mahogany and oak
	Pierced Hemisphere 1	white marble	[55]
	Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red)	mixed
	Oval Sculpture	cast material
–44	Wave	wood, paint and string
	Landscape Sculpture	wood (cast in bronze, )
	Pelagos	wood, paint and string
	Tides	wood and paint
	Blue and green (arthroplasty) 31 December	oil and pencil on pressed paperboard
	Surgeon Waiting	oil and pencil on pressed paperboard
	Operation: Case for Discussion	oil and pencil on pressed paperboard
	Group I (Concourse) 4 February	Serravezza marble
	Hieroglyph	Ancaster stone
	Monolith-Empyrean	Ancaster stone
–55	Two Figures	teak and paint
	Oval Sculpture (Delos)	scented guarea wood and paint
–56	Coré	bronze
	Curved Form (Trevalgan)	bronze (see external link to collection of Margaret Gardiner)
	Orpheus (Maquette), Version II	brass and cotton string
	Stringed Figure (Curlew), Version II	brass and cotton string
	Cantate Domino	bronze
	Sea Form (Porthmeor)	bronze
	Curved develop with inner form&#;– anima	bronze
	Figure for Landscape	bronze
	Archaeon	bronze
	Meridian	bronze
–62	Curved Reclining Form (Rosewall)	Nabresina limestone
	Curved Form	bronze
–63	Bronze Form (Patmos)	bronze
	Winged Figure	bronze
–65	Sphere with Inner Form	bronze
	Rock Form (Porthcurno)	bronze
	Sea Form (Atlantic)	bronze
	Oval Build (Trezion)	bronze	[55]
	Single Form	bronze
	Figure in a Landscape	bronze on wooden base
	Four-Square Walk Through	bronze
	Two Forms (Orkney)	slate
	Two Figures	bronze and gold
	Two Forms	bronze
	Family of Man	bronze
	The Aegean Suite	series of prints
	Summer Dance	painted bronze
	Minoan Head	marble on wooden base
	Assembly of Sea Forms	white marble mounted on stainless steel establish
	Conversation with Magic Stones	bronze and silver

Marble portrait heads virtual dating from London, ca.

, of Barbara Hepworth by John Skeaping, and of Skeaping by Hepworth, are documented by photograph in the Skeaping Retrospective catalogue,^[56] but are both believed to be lost.

Galleries and locations demonstrating her work

Two museums are named after Hepworth and have significant collections of her work: the Barbara Hepworth Museum in St Ives, Cornwall, and The Hepworth Wakefield in West Yorkshire.^[57][58] Her work also may be seen at:

References