| Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) was a sculptor of formal
and abstract figures in bronze, stone and wood. Born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, Hepworth
studied at Leeds School of Art, then from 1921 at the Royal College of Art, from 1924-5
living in Italy as the result of a West Riding Travelling Scholarship. She married the
sculptor John Skeaping in 1924, and she exhibited with him although was marriage dissolved
in1933. In Rome, she had learned the technique of carving. In the early 1930s her interest
in abstract sculpture developed, encouraged by several developments. She had met the
painter Ben Nicholson in 1931 - marrying him shortly afterwards. Her marriage with
Nicholson was dissolved 1951, but during her time with him visited the studios of Arp,
Brancusi, Braque, Picasso and Gabo. Hepworth in the 1930s She
became a member of several forward-looking groups, such as the 7 & 5
Society, Unit One and Abstraction-Creation. In 1939, Hepworth moved to St Ives, Cornwall,
where she became an influential member of the artistic community, being a founder member
of the Penwith Society in 1949. In 1947-8 she had made her notable series of drawings of
operating theatres, and in 1949 she held her first solo show of drawings at Durlacher
Bros, in New York, which extended her growing reputation. Two works were commissioned for
the Festival of Britain in 1951 and she won second prize in The Unknown Political Prisoner
competition two years later. Although in the 1950s she was to design decor for productions
at the Old Vic theatre and for Covent Garden opera house, she was to concentrate on
consolidating her position as Britain's premier female sculptor, being given several
retrospective exhibitions and having work purchased by major international galleries. She
became Dame Barbara Hepworth in 1965. Sadly, she died in a fire in her studio in St. Ives,
Cornwall, where a fine Barbara Hepworth Museum was opened to the public in 1976. |