BARBARA HEPWORTH:
1903 - 1975
BARBARA HEPWORTH:
'Forms in Movement (Pavan)', 1956
(c) Bowness, Hepworth Estate
Barbara Hepworth was one of the foremost artists of the 20th century and is internationally acclaimed as one of the major sculptors of her time.
“All my early memories are of forms and 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 forms…”
Family Life in Wakefield
Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was born January 10th 1903, the eldest daughter of Herbert Raikes and Gertrude Alison Hepworth.
During these early years her father was a Surveyor for the ‘West Riding’ working from County Hall, Wakefield.
The family lived in a small terrace house near Wakefield city centre, but the arrival of two sisters and a brother led the family to seek larger living accommodation. They eventually settled at 4 Hawthorne Grove, off Batley Road. This is where Barbara Hepworth spent most of her childhood in Wakefield.
“My father promised and fulfilled his idea that his three daughters and one son should have equal educational opportunities.”
The School Years
In 1909 Barbara started her formal education at Wakefield Girls’ High School. Here her early artistic talents received much encouragement.
The art room at the school contained a number of plaster casts of classical sculptures such as the Venus de Milo and Apollo Belvedere. These masterpieces were avidly studied and sketched by the young Hepworth.
Eventually she was to gain a scholarship and went to Leeds School of Art.
“Wakefield Cathedral, where I was confirmed, played a large part in my life, and the Wakefield Girls’ High School also. I shall never forget the joy of going to school and the gorgeous smell of the paint I was allowed to use, nor the inspiration and the help the Headmistress, Miss McCroben, gave to me.”
Leeds School of Art 1920-1921
At Leeds School of Art she was to meet the Castleford born sculptor Henry Moore, both were to become the most influential British sculptors of the 20th century.
The training at Leeds was intensive and the long hours often meant that the young Barbara had to catch a late night train home to Wakefield.
London and Italy
Together with Henry Moore, she moved to the Royal College of Art in London in 1921. Barbara enrolled in the School of Sculpture, where she studied until 1924.
In the same year she was awarded a West Riding Scholarship and went to Italy where she met and married the sculptor John Skeaping. Both absorbed the traditions of Italian marble carving whilst living in the British School in Rome, this was to inform such early works as Mask, which is in Wakefield Art Gallery’s collection.
“I wandered round Florence, Siena, Lucca, Arezzo, basking in the new bright light and the new idea of form in the sun. The whole experience gave me new eyes.”
The Thirties
By 1928, Hepworth was living back in England and had a studio in Hampstead, London.
Her neighbours included Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson; the latter artist was to become her second husband.
Hepworth and Nicholson became influential figures in the British modernist movement of the 1930’s.
Via their regular trips to Paris, they kept in contact with like-minded artists such as Hans Arp and Piet Mondrian and met with Picasso, Braque, Brancusi and many of the most famous artists of the 20th century. Some of the most significant sculptures from this important period of her career can be seen at Wakefield Art Gallery.
“Carving became increasingly rhythmical, and I was aware of the special pleasure that sculptors can have through carving, that of complete unity of physical and mental rhythm”.
St.Ives & International Recognition
“Here I was in the middle of St.Ives with a garden, a yard to work in with sun or moon above, and dream of large works and freedom of action. Nobody around has ever complained of the sound of my hammer…”
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Hepworth and her family moved to St. Ives in Cornwall, where the nucleus of an influential artists’ colony was developing.
Her work was to be significantly affected by the Cornish landscape, notably the way the wind and sea fashioned natural forms.
In 1949 she acquired Trewyn Studios. Here she was able to work on large-scale sculpture and public commissions, including the famous Dag Hammarskjold Memorial erected out side the United Nations building in New York in 1964.
In the following year, her contribution to sculpture was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List when she was created a Dame of the British Empire.
Barbara Hepworth died in May 1975 in a fire at her studio home. In the following year, Trewyn was to be opened as a public museum and sculpture garden devoted to her life and work and now forms part of the Tate St Ives.
