Barbara Hepworth DBE was an English artist and modernist sculptor. She was a leading figure in the international art scene with a career spanning five decades.
Hepworth was born in 1903 in Wakefield, Yorkshire. She studied at Leeds College of Art, where she became friends with Henry Moore. Hepworth then continued her education at the Royal College of Art (RCA). After graduating with a diploma, she was awarded a West Riding Travel Scholarship which enabled her to travel to Florence, Italy. Hepworth learned to carve marble under the tutelage of master sculptor, Giovanni Ardini while in italy. Sculptors at the time did not usually learn this skill, as it was considered the work of a stonemason. Hepworth, like modernist sculptors Brancusi, Epstein and Gaudier-Brzeska became a part of the direct carving movement, in which she worked directly into her chosen material instead of making maquette for others to produce the finished piece of work.
On her return to London in 1928, Hepworth exhibited stone carvings of figures and animals at the Beaux Arts Gallery followed by a second exhibition at the Arthur Tooth & Sons gallery in London a year later. Her work was well received, and sold well. Hepworth then began working on more and more simplified sculptures, with her work slowly becoming more abstract. In 1933, Hepworth met and visited the studios of Sophie Taueber-Arp, Jean Arp, Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brancusi in Paris and became involved with the Paris-based art movement Abstraction-Création. That same year, Hepworth co-founded the Unit One art movement with Ben Nicholson, Paul Nash,critic Herbert Read, and architect Wells Coates. The movement aimed to unite Surrealism and abstraction in British art and by 1934, Hepworth’s work was complete abstract, making her the first in the world to create sculptures that were not derived from simplifications of human or organic forms. By the late 30’s, Hepworth’s studio had become the centre of the abstract art movement in Britain, with fellow sculptor Henry Moore living nearby.
In 1939, Hepworth, Nicholson (then her husband) and their children moved to Cornwall following the outbreak of World War II. In 1943, she held her first major solo exhibition in Leeds. The family eventually settled in Chy-an-Kerris in Carbis Bay, St. Ives with Hepworth working out of Trewyn Studios. In 1949, Hepworth co-founded the Penwirth Society of Arts at the Castle inn, with many other artists who had fled to Cornwall during the war becoming members. Hepworth had been forced to leave a large amount of her sculpture work in London, and it was destroyed during the German bombing of the city. Hepworth was inspired by the landscapes around her, and was able to continue to create abstract sculptures in her studio. Following the war, the modernist artistic community in St. Ives gained national prominence.
In 1950, Hepworth exhibited work in the British Pavilion at the XXV Venice Biennale, followed by a retrospective a year later in Wakefield in addition to two of her sculptures were exhibited at the South Bank site of the Festival of Britain. A second retrospective of her work was shown in London in 1954. During this time, Hepworth had to employ assistants to create preliminary work and create bronze editions. In 1959, Hepworth was awarded the Grand Prix at the Sāo Paolo Bienal, cementing her reputation as an artist. A year later, she purchased the Palais de Danse across the street from her studios. This space allowed her to create large-scale commissions.
In 1975, Hepworth died in a fire at her studios. She received many honours during her lifetime, including a CBE in 1958; a DBE in 1965; Freedom of St. Ives in 1968 and honorary degrees from a number of universities. She was also an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Hepworth’s home is now the Barbara Hepworth Museum, and in 2011 the Hepworth Wakefield opened in Wakefield, England.