Barbara Hepworth
Barbara Hepworth was a British sculptor, who was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire in 1903. She was a leading figure in the international art scene throughout a career spanning five decades.
Barbara Hepworth 1903-75
Of a middle-class family from the West Riding of Yorkshire, Barbara Hepworth was born in Wakefield on 10 January 1903; her father, Herbert Hepworth, would become County Surveyor and an Alderman. She trained in sculpture at Leeds School of Art (1920-1) and, on a county scholarship, at the Royal College of Art (1921-4), meeting the painters Raymond Coxon and Edna Ginesi and the sculptor Henry Moore. Hepworth was runner-up to John Skeaping for the 1924 Prix de Rome, but travelled to Florence on a West Riding Travel Scholarship. After visiting Rome and Siena with Skeaping, they were married in Florence on 13 May 1925 and moved to Rome, where both began carving stone. In November 1926, they returned to London. Links forged through the British School at Rome with the sculptor Richard Bedford (a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum), ensured that the collector George Eumorfopoulos visited their studio show in 1927 and bought two Hepworths. The couple moved to 7 The Mall Studios in Hampstead in 1928 (where Hepworth remained until 1939). With Bedford and Moore, they became leading figures in the 'new movement' associated with direct carving. Successful joint exhibitions in 1928 (Beaux Arts Gallery, London and Alex. Reid and Lefevre, Glasgow) and 1930 (Tooth's) consisted of animal and figure sculptures in stone and wood. They joined the London Group and the 7 & 5 Society in 1930-1. A son, Paul, was born in August 1929, but the marriage was deteriorating and in 1931 Hepworth met Ben Nicholson (then married to Winifred Nicholson), who joined her on holiday at Happisburgh, Norfolk. She and Skeaping were amicably divorced in 1933. In 1934 Hepworth gave birth to triplets; she married Nicholson four years later.
Barbara Hepworth, the influential sculptor who’s the subject of a new Google Doodle, is being honored today not for the date of her birth or other well-noted milestone, but rather it was on August 25 in 1939 that Hepworth arrived in St. Ives. Seeking refuge from the war, it was here that Hepworth her partner, Ben Nicholson, would find a community of artists who were able to create despite the havoc of the conflict brewing around them. Together they founded the Penwith Society of Arts with 19 other creatives who were living in the seaside town. Primarily, though, Hepworth is known for her remarkable innovations in the art of sculpture. She helped to pioneer a technique called “direct carving” wherein an artist approaches manipulating raw material instinctually, rather than acting with a prepared model.
It wasn’t that Hepworth had no formal training; quite the opposite. The artist was educated at the Leeds School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London, and she was able to distill her vast knowledge thoroughly enough in order to give herself over to abstraction. Hepworth’s largest, most monumental work ever served as a perfect example of her technique. Entitled Single Form, the artist’s massive bronze sculpture was crafted with her deceased friend Dag Hammarskjöld in mind. Hammarskjöld was the former U.N. secretary-general, and so Single Form was erected in May 1964 in front of the United Nations Building in New York City. The sculpture, which stands 21 feet tall, brings to mind the monolithic, mystical rocks that make up Stonehenge. However, Hepworth has punched a hole through the top of the figure so that it appears to be staring out at the world; an observer standing sentry.