Barbara Hepworth

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Barbara Hepworth (photo from 1966)

Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth DBE (born January 10, 1903 in Wakefield , England , † May 20, 1975 in St Ives in Cornwall , England) was an important British sculptor .

Life

Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was the oldest child of Herbert and Gertrude Hepworth. She attended Girl's High School in Wakefield and then studied (1920/21) at the Leeds School of Arts , where she met Henry Moore . Sculpture studies at the Royal College of Art in London and Italy followed . In 1924 Hepworth received a scholarship for a year-long art tour that took her to Florence and Rome . In 1925 she married the sculptor John Skeaping in Siena . They returned to London in late 1927. Their son Paul was born in 1929.

No art dealer at the time wanted to take the risk of exhibiting the early works of two unknown artists. The two therefore held their first exhibition in their studio at the end of 1927, through which they came into contact with important personalities and art collectors. Another exhibition followed a year later in the Beaux-Arts Gallery in London together with John Skeaping and the painter William EC Morgan. In 1931 Hepworth met Ben Nicholson , with whom she became a member of the Seven and Five Society , a group of seven painters and five sculptors who wanted to bring new impetus to art. (The group disbanded in 1934). That same year, Hepworth separated from Skeaping to live and work with Nicholson. The two took a trip to France in 1933, where they met Hans Arp , Constantin Brâncuși , Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque . Important exhibitions during this time were in London, Liverpool , Manchester and Belfast . In October 1934, the triplets Simon, Rachel and Sarah were born.

Sculpture by Barbara Hepworth overlooking St Ives

The following years were marked by exhibitions and intensive collaboration with other artists such as Ben Nicholson, Paul Nash and Henry Moore . A small circle of interested art connoisseurs and critics took a liking to the work of the young artists around Hepworth and Moore, who swam against the mainstream and attracted more and more attention.

In 1936 the Abstract & Concrete exhibition opened in Oxford . It showed works by Mondrian , Kandinsky , Arp, Giacometti , Miró , Calder , Moholy-Nagy , Nicholson, Hepworth, Moore and others. That same year, the Museum of Modern Art , New York, bought Hepworth's first sculpture.

In April 1938 she exhibited in an exhibition of abstract art in the Stedelijk Museum , Amsterdam. In September his friend, Piet Mondrian, moved from Paris to London, and Nicholson and Hepworth helped him find accommodation. She was near her own studio on Parkhill Road. After Nicholson was divorced from his wife Winifred, she married him in November that year. A year later they moved to their residence in St Ives in Cornwall, where a center of abstract art, the so-called Penwith Society of Artists , was formed around the couple . Many other exhibitions followed. Among other things, the first retrospective in Leeds in 1943. In 1949 Hepworth bought the Trewyn Studio in St. Ives, where she lived until her death. The divorce from Nicholson took place in October 1951.

Barbara Hepworth took part in the Venice Biennale in 1950, documenta 1 (1955) and documenta II in 1959 in Kassel . She created the sculpture Single Form , which was created in the 1960s and is reminiscent of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld . For her large bronze casts, Hepworth acquired the Palais de Danse, a former cinema and dance studio that was opposite the Trewyn Studio. In 1965 she was knighted. Ten years later, at the age of 72, she died in a fire in her studio. This and the adjacent sculpture garden have been the Barbara Hepworth Museum since 1980. It is run by the Tate St Ives . Since 2011 there is another museum dedicated to her art, The Hepworth Wakefield . In 1973 she was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

plant

The works of Hans Arps and Constantin Brâncuși had a great influence on Barbara Hepworth's work, and their highly abstract works show parallels to the work of their friend Henry Moore. An example of this period is her 104 cm high figure Hollow Form with White Interior made of guarea wood, which was auctioned in June 2011 at the London auction house Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert.

Further works have been exhibited at The Hepworth Wakefield Museum since May 2011 , the construction of which was planned by the English architect David Chipperfield in her native Wakefield. In addition, works by her British contemporaries were recorded, including Ben Nicholson, Graham Sutherland , Paul Nash, Patrick Heron , Walter Sickert and international artists such as Piet Mondrian, Constantin Brâncuși and Alberto Giacometti.

Recent exhibitions

literature

  • Penelope Curtis: Barbara Hepworth (= St Ives Artists ). Tate Gallery Publishing, London 1998, ISBN 1-85437-225-4 .
  • Abraham M. Hammacher: Barbara Hepworth (= World of Art ). Revised edition, reprinted. Thames & Hudson, London 2004, ISBN 0-500-20218-4 .
  • Barbara Hepworth: A Pictorial Autobiography. Tate Gallery Publishing, London 1998, ISBN 1-85437-149-5 .
  • Gerhard Bissell: Hepworth, Barbara . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 72, de Gruyter, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-023177-9 , pp. 97-101.

Web links

Commons : Barbara Hepworth  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Hepworth biography
  2. ↑ a b Abraham M. Hammacher: Barbara Hepworth. Revised edition. Thames and Hudson, London 1987, ISBN 0-500-20218-4 .
  3. ↑ Honorary Members: Barbara Hepworth. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 11, 2019 .
  4. ^ Hepworth Wakefield website
personal data
SURNAME Hepworth, Barbara
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hepworth, Jocelyn Barbara (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English sculptress
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Wakefield
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 1975
Place of death St. Ives , Cornwall