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Barbara Hepworth Work from 1958 – 1973
Spring 2020
In the last fifteen years of her life, Barbara Hepworth made a series of highly There is a retrospective character to Hepworth’s work of the 1960s and ‘70s, polished, unpatinated bronzes that are characterised by a sensuous, golden with the abstraction of the 1930s a particular point of reference. The formal finish. They illustrate a new richness in her later work, seen also in her use purity of the ‘30s is recalled in the simple geometric forms of a work such as of colour and of a variety of exotic stones. Their reflective surfaces are akin Three Hemispheres (1967). Hepworth also made new variations on themes to the high finish achieved on some of her contemporary marble and slate she had first developed in the 1930s, for example the relationship between a carvings. pair of forms, and the three part grouping, Oval with Two Forms is a variant on the theme of the sheltering form with dependent smaller form(s) – essentially The polished bronzes are generally either small-scale or table-size. Hepworth a mother and child idea – which originated in the mid 1930s in works such as enjoyed working small: “It’s refreshing, like painting or drawing”, she observed Nesting Stones (marble, 1937). in 1970. Hepworth’s adoption of bronze in 1956 allowed her to greatly increase her output in response to demand (through the production of editions), as well A number of the small polished bronzes have an architectural quality and as the range and scale of her work. The monumental bronze Single Form suggest ideas for large-scale works in outdoor settings: Three Forms (Extra (1961-1964), which was commissioned for the United Nations building in New Eye) and Squares (June), for example, composed of rectilinear planes pierced York as a memorial to the Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjöld, sealed her with circles, relate to the monumental bronzes Squares with Two Circles international reputation. (1963) and Four-Square (Walk Through) (1966), a cast of which can be seen where Hepworth placed it in her studio garden in St Ives (now the Barbara Hepworth’s practice was to cast her bronzes from plaster, which she carved Hepworth Museum). Maquette Theme and Variations is a small version of the once it had hardened on an armature. She disliked modelling in clay, in which relief sculpture which Hepworth was commissioned to design for the façade she had been trained as a student at the Royal College of Art. “I only learned of the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society’s head office. to love bronze,” she wrote to Ben Nicholson in 1966, “when I found that it was gentle and I could file it and carve it and chisel it. Each one is a ‘person’ to In the 1960s Hepworth became fascinated by the relationship between sun, me – as much as a marble.” With the help of her assistants, the bronzes were moon and sea. She wrote of St Ives: “We are so placed here, geographically, frequently finished by hand on their return from the foundry, especially in the that both sun and moon rise and set over the water with a great radiance and early years. By contrast with her textured bronzes, the polished bronzes have this fact sets up a remarkable tension in my everyday life.” Disc with Strings a smooth surface and a brilliant shine. They have a light of their own as well (Sun) is one of a group of works, including a number of her prints, which as being highly reflective. Hepworth intended them to be touched. She wrote reflect this new interest. of the relationship between light and touch: “The importance of light in relation to form will always interest me… Light gives full play to our tactile perceptions With their brilliant surfaces and combination of sensuousness and elegance, through the experience of our eyes.” the polished bronzes have a distinctive place within Hepworth’s singularly various later work. In 1958 Hepworth began to cast bronze editions of chosen earlier carvings in wood or stone, in part to preserve fragile works but also to meet demand for her sculpture. Discs in Echelon is a notable example with a complex history that spans a period of thirty years. The original wood carving, now in the Dr Sophie Bowness Museum of Modern Art, New York, was made in 1935 and cast in plaster and later in aluminium. In 1959 Hepworth made a solid bronze edition of the work, and in 1964 a hollow bronze version was cast. Similarly, Oval with Two Forms was cast in polished bronze in 1971 from a marble and slate work carved in the previous year (Tate collection). Brancusi had frequently translated his carvings into polished bronze – a medium which had special significance for We are grateful to Dr Sophie Bowness for her advice, and for her permission him – and his example may well have influenced Hepworth’s transpositions. to reprint the essay she wrote on the occasion of the New Art Centre’s first She had been deeply impressed by her visit to his studio in Paris in 1933. polished bronze exhibition, curated by Helen Waters, at Roche Court in 2001. The entire surface of Shaft and Circle is maintained at a high polish. Many of Hepworth’s late works incorporated high reflection in parts, such as with the gilded opening in Divided Circle (1969) but Shaft and Circle’s high polish is particularly notable.
As Dore Ashton, the American writer and art critic, said in 1974, the vertical line and circular markings are reminiscent of something ancient, from the Anglo-Saxon past. It brings to mind the markings of cave paintings or ancient graffiti, as well as alluding to Hepworth’s earlier works such as Small Hieroglyph (1959).
“Sometimes Hepworth’s use of archaisms, particularly in linear incisions in the stone, is as blunt as prehistoric man’s. The Shaft and Circle stands as an open allusion to the ancients, whether the ancient graffiti draftsmen, or the ancient animal-stone carvers, or the old Anglo-Saxon cross-or-round-shaft builders. Often her allusions to ancient motifs are highly sublimated, tinctured with the values of our century, yet emergent wherever we look.”
(D. Ashton in Barbara Hepworth, ‘Conversations’ (exhibition catalogue), p.7)
Barbara Hepworth Shaft and Circle (BH 572) Conceived 1972, cast 1973 Polished Bronze 121 x 47.5 x 30.5 cm 3ft 11 1/4 x 1ft 6 3/4 x 1ft ins Cast 1 of 9 + 0 (only 7 cast) Four Figures Waiting draws together many of Hepworth’s artistic ambitions, forms and ideas that she worked with throughout her career. She was very interested in the interaction between figures, epitomised here in the slight undulation of the forms which appear to lean towards one another. In later works Hepworth expanded on this idea and combined the exploration of the interaction of the human form with the imagery of Neolithic carvings and the arrangement of stone circles such as Stonehenge.
She also pierces a form as she did with many of the works in her later career. Hepworth’s use of the pierced form seems to pre-date her friend Henry Moore’s use of the technique by about a year. In introducing this element to her work she changed abstract sculpture by moving from a single entire form to one that creates new positive and negative spaces and in framing the surroundings, incorporates the sculpture’s environment within the work.
Barbara Hepworth Four Figures Waiting (BH 461) 1968 Polished Bronze on a Patinated Bronze Base 7 7 2ft 1/4 x 1ft 6 ⁄8 x 1ft 6 ⁄8 ins 61.5 x 48 x 48 cm Cast 2 of 9 + 0 Hepworth used the pierced hole as a major motif in her sculpture from 1932 onwards. She began casting works in bronze from the mid-1950s and in Three Forms (Tokio), the effect of piercing on the reflective qualities of the work can be seen.
The three forms show Hepworth’s increased interest in the abstract form that developed from the 1930s onwards. She said that her interest “grew in more abstract values – the weight, poise and curvature of the ovoid as a basic form.”
In piercing the forms she saw “an infinite variety of continuous curves in the third dimension, changing in accordance with the contours of the original ovoid and with the degree of penetration of the material.”
Barbara Hepworth Three Forms (Tokio) (BH 439) 1967 Polished Bronze with Patinated Hollows 16.5 x 25 x 15 cm 7 7 6 1/2 x 9 ⁄8 x 5 ⁄8 ins Cast 2 of 9 + 0 Holed Hemisphere is defined by its central hole, the inner negative form that frames the world beyond. As with Three Forms (Tokio), the work explores the effect that the curvature of the highly polished bronze, together with the pierced hole, has on the viewer’s experience of its small inner space. Piercing abstract forms, Hepworth said in recalling the creation of Pierced Form (1932), gave her “intense pleasure […] quite a different sensation from that of doing it for the purpose of realism.”
Hepworth was very interested in the technological developments of her day and the use of the half sphere form she likened to the satellite dishes on Goonhilly in Cornwall which were built in 1962. In an interview in 1971 she said, “I was invited to go on board the first one when it began to go round, and it was so magical and so strange. I find such forms of our technology very exciting and inspiring.”
She used this form again in later works such as Three Hemispheres (1967) and Four Hemispheres (1970).
Barbara Hepworth Holed Hemisphere (BH 320) 1962 Polished Bronze 9.5 x 9.6 x 4.5 cm 3 3/4 x 3 3/4 x 1 3/4 ins Cast 2 of 9 + 0 The title of this work alludes to Hepworth’s interest in using markings on the surfaces of her work to evoke something archaic or reminiscent of the ancient past. Hieroglyph is the Greek word for ‘sacred carving’. Therefore the markings on the highly polished surface of this work appear to suggest a primeval religion but also, as with the later work Shaft and Circle, prehistoric graffiti or the Anglo-Saxon heritage of Great Britain.
Barbara Hepworth Small Hieroglyph (BH 268) 1959 Stamped ‘2/10’ (on underside) Polished Bronze on a Bronze Base 4 1/4 x 4 x 3 1/2 ins 10.8 x 10.2 x 8.9 cm Cast 2 of 10 In Group of Three Magic Stones Hepworth explores the effect of placing metal forms on a slate base. However, unlike similar works where the forms are often of different size and shapes, in Group of Three Magic Stones the ‘stones’ are all identical but placed on alternative sides.
The forms and their positioning on the base alludes to Hepworth’s interest in exploring the relationship between a group of forms- the interplay between these identical shapes and the inner space they create is greatly changed by their positioning. The forms reflect each other thereby creating brand new forms on their surfaces.
Barbara Hepworth Group of Three Magic Stones (BH 569) 1973 Silver on a Slate Base 12 x 35.5 x 27.5 cm 7 4 3/4 x 14 x 10 ⁄8 in Cast 1 of 6 + 0 This is the first of three sculptures from the Torso series which Hepworth devised in 1958. The three include: Torso I (Ulysses), Torso II (Torcello) and Torso III (Galatea). They demonstrate how Hepworth was beginning to make bronzes that were more solid and imposing in form than before.
She used a process she had devised in 1956 to make the plasters for this group. At first she used a sheet of expanded aluminium which was then covered with plaster. This method made a form which was easy to change and alter when necessary. The aluminium sheets were folded over to make a hollow shape which was structurally strong and meant that works such as the Torso group had a strong and robust appearance.
The highly textured surface of Torso I (Ulysses) shows how Hepworth cut and carved the surface of the plaster when it was dry, a process close to the direct carving method she had used on earlier stone and wooden pieces.
“I only learned to love bronze when I found that it [the plaster] was gentle and I could file it and carve it and chisel it.” (letter to Ben Nicholson in 1966)
The work was cast at the Susse Frères foundry in Paris and then further modified when the cast was delivered to her studio. She or her assistants would thereafter file and chisel the surface to create the desired effect.
Barbara Hepworth Torso I (Ulysses) (BH233) 1960 (first edition cast in 1958) Signed, inscribed and editioned ‘Susse Fondeur Paris’ (lower left) and ‘Barbara Hepworth 6/6’ (lower right) Bronze 4ft 4 x 2ft 9 x 2ft 1 ins 132.2 x 83.8 x 63.5 cm Cast 6 of 6 Compiled by Natalie Downing
Sources:
Gale, Matthew, 1998, Torso II (Torcello) 1958, Tate, viewed 31 March 2020,
Gale, Matthew, 1998, Shaft and Circle 1973, Tate, viewed 31 March 2020,
Hepworth, Barbara, 1952, Extracts from Barbara Hepworth: Carvings and Drawings, with an introduction by Herbert Read, London, 1952, Dr Sophie Bowness, viewed 31 March 2020,
Smith, Ali, 2015, Looking at the world through the eyes of Barbara Hepworth, New Statesman and Fitzcarraldo Editions, viewed 31 March 2020,
The Hepworth Wakefield, Barbara Hepworth 1903-1975, Three Hemispheres, If you would like to enquire about any of the works by Barbara Hepworth The Hepworth Wakefield, viewed 31 March 2020,
Roche Court T +44(0)1980 862244 East Winterslow F +44(0)1980 862447 Salisbury, Wiltshire [email protected] SP5 1BG www.sculpture.uk.com NewArtCentre.