Barbara Hepworth | Viewing Room
England, 1903 – 1975

Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903 – 1975) was a British artist and sculptor, best known for her pioneering work in modernist art and as one of few women artists to achieve international recognition. Earning a scholarship to Leeds School of Art, she met a young Henry Moore and the two quickly established a friendly rivalry that saw them pave the way for modernist sculpture.

While early works were characterized by abstraction in marble or stone, time spent in St Ives led to a broader repertoire of wood and bronze, as well as figurative work closely related to that of her contemporary, Moore. Her later career also saw experimentation with lithography, producing suites with the Curwen Press in the late 1960s. Hepworth tragically died in a fire at her Trewyn studios in 1975.

Barbara Hepworth | Viewing Room

Were it not for an introduction to the lithographer Stanley Jones, Barbara Hepworth – grand dame of British sculpture – may never have left her legacy in print.

The printmaker Stanley Jones arrived with some trepidation in St Ives in 1958. The Cornish town was, he said, ‘an unknown quantity’ – and so was he, just 25 years old, dispatched by his employers at the newly established Curwen Studio to seek out partnerships in the artists colony.

The sculptor Barbara Hepworth was high on his list of potential collaborators. Stanley Jones was then in the very earliest days of his career: he had given up a promising apprenticeship in Montparnasse to help Curwen establish a competitor to the renowned lithography ateliers of Paris. Hepworth, on the other hand, was entering her last professional chapter, a fruitful period of late creativity that saw her introduction to the world of printmaking.

RSVP

All

Discover