“I rarely draw what I see. I draw what I feel in my body”
Born to a middle-class family in Wakefield, Yorkshire, Barbara Hepworth was something of an artistic prodigy. Deciding at the age of just 15 to become a sculptor, Hepworth enrolled at the Leeds School of Art in 1919, where she was to meet lifelong friend and reciprocal influence, Henry Moore.
Alongside Moore, Hepworth pioneered the development of abstract sculpture in Britain, establishing a new artistic vocabulary that remains resonant to this day. Central to her practice was an appreciation for the sculpted material itslef; through privileging the inherent properties of a particular medium, Hepworth dictated her sculptures on the basis of pre-existing aesthetic qualities.
Perhaps it was this idealised approach that endowed her works with characteristic, lyrical naturalism; the marks of Hepworth’s chisel appear to be the work of prolonged weathering rather than human manipulation.
Despite a career-long fascination with organic, simplified features, it was not until the early 1930s that Hepworth’s works became entirely abstract. From this point, her output shifts in focus, reflecting on formal qualities rather than a specific subject matter. Particularly in the wake of her marriage to Ben Nicholson in 1933, Hepworth’s sculptures explore the severely geometric, celebrating the artistic value of straight edges and clean lines.
Increasingly, Hepworth navigated a leap from the formal to the spacial. Several of her later pieces were hollowed out and perforated, encouraging the viewer to engage with the interior space alongside its surrounding mass. This effect was heightened by her placement of strings and paint, which she used to accent and define the sculptural voids.
Tragically, Hepworth was killed in a house fire in 1975. However, she remains one of Britain’s most important sculptors. Not only did she exert a profound influence on European abstractionist groups through her associations with the likes of Picasso, Miró and Mondrian; her identity as a woman empowered the artistic careers of eminent women artists, including Tracy Emin.