“I found there was such beauty in the co-ordinated human endeavour that the composition – human in appearance – became abstract in shape. I became completely absorbed by the extraordinary beauty of purpose between human beings all dedicated to saving life; and the way this special grace (grace of mind and body) induced a spontaneous space composition, an articulated and animated kind of abstract sculpture very close to what I had been seeking in my own work.”
[1]
HEPWORTH 1903-1975
Fenestration (The Microscope)
1948
Pencil and oil on gesso-prepared board
14 x 18 inches; 35.5 x 45.8 cm.
Barbara Hepworth
Mother and Child
1934
Wakefield Art Gallery
copyright Bowness, Hepworth Estate
I recently visited the Moore | Hepworth | Nicholson - A Nest of Gentle Artists in the 1930s exhibition where I saw this Hepworth Mother and Child and was struck by the tenderness of the composition. It brings to mind those heart stopping moments when babies are learning to stand - and spend more time falling down, that precarious moment of poised success before the wobbling legs collapse into a surprised heap of giggles.
Reducing the forms to this simple expression emphasizes that moment and the universality of the experience. Most of us have seen something like this and though it’s unlikely we remember it, we will have been that tiny form trying to stand. The process of de-personalizing the moment through simplification has paradoxically made it more accessibly, individually personal at the same time as emphasizing the universality of the experience. And, taking the analogy a step further, is a wonderful reminder about the persistence of effort.
The image doesn’t do the piece justice, it can’t because one aspect of it is that it’s actually two pieces with the baby being removeable - it ’sits’ on a peg, though it fits in only one position. There is another piece also titled ‘Mother and Child’ by Hepworth in this exhibition but the one shown here outshines it for me.
Exhibition tours to the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield from 20 May – 29 August 09
“I must always have a clear image of the form of a work before I begin. Otherwise there is no impulse to create.”
Two Rocks
1971
Irish black marble
Height: 116.8 cm /46 ins
“One must be entirely sensitive to the structure of the material that one is handling. One must yield to it in tiny details of execution, perhaps the handling of the surface or grain, and one must master it as a whole.”
- Group of Three Magic Stones
1973
Silver
Edition of 6
7.6 × 35 × 31 cm / 3 × 13 3/4 × 12 1/4 ins
“components fall into place and one is no longer aware of the detail except as the necessary significance of wholeness and unity.”
[2]
Disc with Strings (Moon)
BH484
1969
Aluminium with strings, edition 4 of 9 + 0
Height: 18 inches
A few Quotes
And a few more Quotes
More examples of works by Dame Barbara Hepworth at the New Art Centre
[1] An extract from her autobiography that relates to her watching a team of surgeons operating, quoted by Will Gompertz in his article My life in art: Barbara Hepworth and the art of alchemy, further information about her autobiograhy is not provided.
[2] source as [1]