Barbara Hepworth

Quotes

• “I do not want to make a stone horse that is trying to and cannot smell the air. How lovely is the horse’s sensitive nose, the dogs moving ears and deep eyes; but to me these are not stone forms and the love of them and the emotion can only be expressed in more abstract terms. I do not want to make a machine that cannot fulfil its essential purpose; but to make exactly the right relation of masses, a living thing in stone, to express my awareness and thought of these things.”
• “Carving is interrelated masses conveying an emotion; a perfect relationship between the mind and the colour, light and weight which is the stone, made by the hand which feels. It must be so essentially sculpture that it can exist in no other way, something completely the right size but which has growth, something still and yet having movement, so very quiet and yet with a real vitality.”
• “A constructive work is an embodiment of freedom itself, and is unconsciously perceived, even by those who are consciously against it. The desire to live is the strongest universal emotion, it springs from the depths of our unconscious sensibility – and the desire to give life is our most potent, constructive, conscious expression of this intuition.”
• “He [Giovanni Ardini, Italian master-carver] opened up a new vista for me of the quality of form, light, and colour contained in the Mediterranean conception of carving.”
• “Before I start carving the idea must be almost complete. I say 'almost' because the really important thing seems to be the sculptor's ability to let his intuition guide him over the gap between conception and realization without compromising the integrity of the original idea; the point being that the material has vitality – it resists and makes demands..”
• “I have gained very great inspiration from the Cornish land- and seascape, the horizontal line of the sea and the quality of light and colour which reminds me of the Mediterranean light and colour which so excites one’s sense of form; and first and last there is the human figure which in the country becomes a free and moving part of a greater whole. This relationship between figure and landscape is vitally important to me. I cannot feel it in a city.”

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born

Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth , ( 1903-01-10 ) 10 January 1903, Wakefield , Wrenthorpe, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

Died

20 May 1975 (1975-05-20) (aged 72), St Ives , Cornwall, England

Education

Wakefield Girls' High School Leeds School of Art Royal College of Art

Known for

Sculpture

Movement

Modernism , abstract art

Spouses

John Skeaping ​ ​ ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1925 ; divorced</span>"}]]}'>div. 1933 ) ​ Ben Nicholson ​ ​ ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1938 ; divorced</span>"}]]}'>div. 1951 ) ​

Children

4, including Simon Nicholson

Website

www .barbarahepworth .org .uk

via Wikipedia infobox

Key dates

Born

10 January 1903

Died

20 May 1975

via Wikidata · CC0

Wikidata facts

Instance of

human

Given name

Barbara

Gender

female

Citizenship

United Kingdom

Place of birth

Wakefield

Place of death

St Ives

Spouse

Ben Nicholson

Occupation

visual artist

Languages spoken

English language

Award

Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Participant in

Documenta II

Field of work

art of sculpture

Genre

public art

Movement

Catalan modernism

Official website

barbarahepworth.org.uk

Image

Barbara Hepworth (1966) by Erling Mandelmann.jpg

Work location

St Ives

via Wikidata · CC0