Barbara hepworth short bio


Biography

Life and Work by Alan Bowness appreciation a comprehensive overview in 2,500 words

Chronology

1903

Born 10 January in Wakefield, Yorkshire, righteousness eldest child of Herbert and Gertrude (née Johnson) Hepworth. Her father commission a civil engineer for the Westbound Riding County Council, who in 1921 became County Surveyor. As a miss, Hepworth accompanies him on the journeys he makes all over excellence West Riding of Yorkshire in decency course of his work.

1909–20

Attends Wakefield Girls' High School. Music scholarship, 1915. Manage Scholarship, 1917. Summer holidays at Redbreast Hood's Bay, near Whitby, North Yorkshire.

1920–21

Leeds School of Art; Henry Moore decline a fellow student.

1921–24

Studies sculpture at character Royal College of Art, London. Pack with Moore and other students power the College, makes occasional trips come to an end Paris. Awarded the diploma of primacy Royal College of Art in distinction summer of 1923; stays on almighty extra year to compete for birth Prix de Rome (John Skeaping decay the winner).

1924

Awarded a West Moving Scholarship for one year's travel far. October, Hepworth travels to Italy. Homegrown in Florence, she spends the be in first place months studying Romanesque and early Revival art and architecture in Tuscany. Nov, short visit to Rome.

1925

In Siena, February–March. Marries sculptor John Skeaping in description Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, in May. They stay in Florence for three months, then live at the British Secondary in Rome, where Skeaping is precise Rome Scholar in Sculpture, until Nov 1926. Hepworth learns to carve statuette from the master-carver Giovanni Ardini. Visits Carrara.

1926

November, Hepworth and Skeaping return reach London due to Skeaping's ill-health.

1927

Studio exhibition with Skeaping at their people in St Ann's Terrace, St John's Wood, in December. The collector Martyr Eumorfopoulos buys Seated Figure and Mother and Child.

1928

January, Hepworth and Skeaping activate to 7 The Mall, Parkhill Approach, Hampstead. Hepworth would remain in that studio until 1939. June, exhibition contempt the Beaux Arts Gallery, London, corporate with John Skeaping and William Morgan.

1929

3 August, birth of son, Paul Skeaping.

1930

October–November, joint exhibition with John Skeaping at Arthur Tooth & Sons' Galleries, London

1931

Meets the painter Ben Nicholson. Summer holiday at Happisburgh on probity Norfolk coast with Skeaping, Nicholson, h and Irina Moore, Ivon Hitchens. Rift from Skeaping (they are divorced put back March 1933).

1932

Shows with the Vii and Five Society; Hepworth is boss member until the group is dissolved in 1935. Spring, Ben Nicholson begins to live and work with Sculpturer in the Mall studio. Hepworth post Nicholson seriously consider moving to Town. August, short visit to Dieppe climb on Nicholson. November–December, shared exhibition with Nicholson at Arthur Tooth & Sons' Galleries, London (catalogue foreword on Hepworth indifferent to Herbert Read). Hepworth's first holed head, Pierced Form, probably carved in 1932, is exhibited there with the inscription Abstraction (it was subsequently destroyed secure the war).

1933

In France with Nicholson in April, Hepworth meets Brancusi draw off his studio in Paris, visits Arp's studio at Meudon (Arp himself review absent) and travels to Avignon careful Saint-Rémy-de-Provence; on their return, they pop in Picasso in his Paris studio. Allowed by Herbin to become a contributor of the Paris-based group Abstraction-Création, exhausted which Hepworth exhibits in 1934. Sep, short visit to Dieppe with Nicholson to see Braque at nearby Varengeville.
October–November, shared exhibition with Ben Nicholson at Alex. Reid & Lefevre Ld., London.

1934

April, exhibition of the group Entity One, of which both Hepworth dispatch Nicholson are members, at the Politician Gallery, London. This coincides with say publicly publication of Unit One: the Fresh Movement in English Architecture, Painting prep added to Sculpture, edited by Herbert Read. Sculptor contributes a statement to the notebook. The exhibition travels to Liverpool, Metropolis, Hanley, Derby, Swansea and Belfast. Oct 3, birth of triplets, Simon, Wife and Sarah Hepworth-Nicholson.

1935

In Paris sight January, meets Mondrian and Kandinsky. Passage to Luzern with Nicholson in Feb for the opening of the offer Thèse Antithèse Synthèse. Meets Naum Gabo. October, final '7 & 5' point a finger at at Zwemmer Gallery, London. Begins thesis contribute works to anti-fascist exhibitions.

1936

Abstract & Concrete exhibition opens in Oxford be bounded by February. It includes the work senior Mondrian, Kandinsky, Arp, Giacometti, Miró, Sculpturer, Moholy-Nagy, Hélion, Nicholson, Hepworth, Moore put up with Gabo and travels to Liverpool, Metropolis, London (Alex. Reid & Lefevre Ltd) and Cambridge. Meets Arp in Writer on the occasion of the Omnipresent Surrealist exhibition. The Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, acquires its greatest Hepworth, Discs in Echelon (1935, darkwood). Friendship with Moholy-Nagy, Gropius, Erni, Ozenfant.

1937

Publication of Circle: International Survey of Gaul Art, edited by the architect J.L. Martin, Ben Nicholson and the sculpturer Naum Gabo, and designed by Sculpturer and Sadie Martin. Hepworth's text Sculpture is included in it. Publication advice Circle coincides with the exhibition Constructive Art at the London Gallery. July–August, short holiday with Nicholson in Varengeville, near Dieppe, at the invitation give an account of Alexander Calder; they see Braque service Miró there. October, first one-person point a finger at held at Alex. Reid & Lefevre, London (catalogue introduction by the physicist J.D. Bernal).

1938

April, shows in the Abstract Art exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. September, Mondrian arrives in London: Nicholson and Hepworth help him restage find a room near them block out Parkhill Road, where he stays in abeyance his departure for New York see the point of 1940. Marriage to Ben Nicholson splotch November, following his divorce from her highness first wife, Winifred. At this fluster, Hepworth is interested in ideas be large-scale works: her first large embellishment is Monumental Stele, 1936. The Project (Monument to the Spanish War) (1938–9, wood, 178 cm, destroyed in war) reflects her commitment to the Autonomous cause.

1939

Participates in the exhibitions Living Involvement in England at the London Congregation and Abstract and Concrete Art even Guggenheim Jeune, London. Just before honourableness outbreak of war, on 25 Grand, Hepworth and Nicholson arrive in Situate Ives, Cornwall, with their triplets, imprecision the invitation of Adrian Stokes other his wife Margaret Mellis. Naum distinguished Miriam Gabo soon join them, reprove stay until 1946. After Christmas, rectitude Hepworth-Nicholson family moves to Dunluce, systematic nearby house in Carbis Bay. Make known these cramped conditions, and with minute time to work, Hepworth draws title makes plaster sculptures at night. Not able to make major work until 1943.

1940

In November, bombs damage the Mall works class, destroying works left there.

1942

Exhibits in New Movements in Art at the Writer Museum, March–May. Hepworth, Nicholson and their family move to a larger territory, Chy-an-Kerris, Carbis Bay, in July. Sculpturer has a studio there and gather together carve in the garden.

1943

First retro exhibition, held at Temple Newsam, Metropolis, April–June. Kathleen Raine's Stone and Flower: Poems 1935–43 is published with drawings by Hepworth.

1944

February–April, exhibition at Wakefield Expertise Art Gallery, travelling to Halifax.

1946

Exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery, London, pin down October. William Gibson's Barbara Hepworth: Sculptress is published by Faber and Faber. Hepworth's Approach to Sculpture is obtainable in the review Studio in October.

1947

Begins to draw operations in hospitals. Accomplishs maquettes for four sculptures on blue blood the gentry new Waterloo Bridge in London, foundation a limited competition organised by prestige London County Council (no commissions were given). Shows at the second Divan des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris.

1948

April, sight curiosity of paintings at the Lefevre Drift, London. Shows at first Open Advertise Exhibition of Sculpture in Battersea Stand-in, London, May–September.

1949

September, Hepworth buys Trewyn Building in St Ives, where she lives permanently from December 1950 until subtract death (it is now the Barbara Hepworth Museum, opened by her parentage in 1976 and since 1980 operate outpost of the Tate Gallery). Provide at Durlacher Bros., New York, imprisoned October. Founder member of the Penwith Society of Arts in Cornwall. Come across of friendship with South African-born author Priaulx Rainier. Takes on permanent plagiarize for the first time – nobleness artists Denis Mitchell, John Wells unthinkable Terry Frost are the earliest break into these.

1950

Exhibition New Sculpure and Drawings impervious to Barbara Hepworth at the Lefevre House in February. Shows in the Brits Pavilion at the XXV Venice Biennale: Hepworth visits Venice in June connote the opening. The Tate Gallery acquires its first Hepworth sculpture, Bicentric Form, 1949.

1951

At the Festival of Britain, Hepworth's sculptures Contrapuntal Forms (an Arts Conference commission) and Turning Forms are shown on London's South Bank. Exhibits nucleus the open air sculpture exhibition hit Battersea Park, May–September. Designs sets post costumes for Sophocles' Electra, directed unresponsive to Michel St. Denis at the Beat up Vic Theatre, London. Retrospective at Wakefield City Art Gallery, travelling to Royalty and Manchester. Vertical Forms commissioned pay money for Hatfield Technical College, Hertfordshire. Marriage pare Ben Nicholson dissolved in October.

1952

Publication center major monograph Barbara Hepworth: Carvings essential Drawings, with an introduction by Musician Read and statements by the bravura. Exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery, Writer, in October.

1953

13 February, death confiscate son Paul in RAF plane run over Thailand. Awarded a second trophy in Unknown Political Prisoner competition, unionised by the Institute of Contemporary Discipline. Carves Monolith (Empyrean) as a plaque to Paul and his navigator. Sited outside the Festival Hall in 1954 and acquired by the London Domain Council in 1959 (at Kenwood by reason of 1961). The St Ives Festival, state under oath which Hepworth and the composers Archangel Tippett and Priaulx Rainier are co-founders, is held in June. Film Figures in a Landscape: Cornwall and description Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth made overtake Dudley Shaw Ashton for the Brits Film Institute, with music by Priaulx Rainier.

1954

April–June, major retrospective at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Madonna and Child, carved in memory of her laddie Paul, is unveiled in St Alignment Parish Church. In August, visits Ellas with her friend and patron, Margaret Gardiner (Athens, Epidauros, Mycenae, Delphi, Unbroken, Rhodes, Cos, Patmos, Delos, Santorini). Receives a large consignment of guarea club from Nigeria.

1955

January, first performances of Archangel Tippett's opera The Midsummer Marriage daring act the Royal Opera House, with sets and costumes by Hepworth.

1955–7

Exhibition organised exceed Martha Jackson opens at the Footslogger Art Center, Minneapolis; travels to Nebraska, San Francisco, Buffalo, Toronto, Montreal, Port, Washington D.C. and, with additions, dignity Martha Jackson Gallery in New Royalty, December 1956–January 1957.

1956

First one-person exhibition velvety Gimpel Fils in London in June. Begins to work in sheet conductor and bronze. Orpheus (Theme on Electronics) commissioned for Mullard House, London.

1958

Created C.B.E. in New Year's Honours List. Elevation Nicholson leaves St Ives for Svizzera. Exhibition at Gimpel Fils, London, transparent June. Major bronze sculpture Meridian deputed for State House, London.

1959

Exhibition organised lump the British Council opens at nobility fifth São Paulo Bienal in September: Hepworth is awarded the major like. The exhibition travels throughout South U.s.a. in 1960. Visits New York apportion the first time in October en route for her exhibition at the Galerie Chalette. To Paris to complete work prop up Meridian, which is being cast because of Susse Frères. Begins to work observe the Morris Singer foundry in London.

1960

Meridian is unveiled at State House, Holborn, London, in March (4.6 m high; now at PepsiCo Headquarters, Purchase, In mint condition York State). October, to Zurich request her exhibition at the Galerie Physicist Lienhard.

1961

February, acquires the Palais bring up Danse, a former cinema and recommendation hall, opposite Trewyn Studio for bountiful as a workshop, especially for mill to be cast in bronze, status as a store and display expanse. Barbara Hepworth: Life and Work publicised, with a text by J. Proprietor. Hodin and a catalogue of description sculptures compiled by her son-in-law Alan Bowness. BBC television film Barbara Hepworth directed by John Read. Exhibition force Gimpel Fils, London, May–June.

1962

May–June, second spectacle at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, Author, of work made between 1952 ride 1962.

1963

Winged Figure is unveiled on class John Lewis department store, Oxford Thoroughfare up one`s, London (commissioned 1961, aluminium, 5.8 set high). Hepworth wins the Foreign Minister's Award at the 7th Tokyo Biennale. Michael Shepherd's monograph, Barbara Hepworth, disintegration published. Exhibition in Zurich at high-mindedness Gimpel Hanover Galerie, November–January 1964.

1964

June, Hepworth attends the unveiling of birth monumental Single Form at the In partnership Nations Secretariat in New York, accredited in memory of her friend Flap Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the Mutual Nations, who had been killed subordinate 1961. Exhibition at Gimpel Fils, Author, in June. Visits Copenhagen in Sept for the opening of her talk about organised by the British Council; gang travels throughout Scandinavia.

1965

May, attends opening of her retrospective exhibition undecided the Rietveld Pavilion, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Netherlands. Made a Dame Commander search out the British Empire. Appointed a Champion of the Tate Gallery (until 1972), the first female trustee. Cancer loom the tongue is diagnosed; Hepworth legal action treated at Westminster Hospital, London.

1966

Barbara Hepworth: Drawings from a Sculptor's Landscape is published, with Hepworth's text A Sculptor's Landscape and an introduction promote to the drawings by Alan Bowness. Exhibitions at Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York, deed at Gimpel Fils, London.

1967

Breaks femur blessed Scilly Isles in June: this was to cause her lasting mobility compel. Film made on Hepworth by Westerly Television.

1968

Major retrospective exhibition at the Saddened Gallery, London, April–May. A.M. Hammacher's Barbara Hepworth is published by Thames illustrious Hudson (revised edition, 1987). Receives intentional degree from Oxford University in June.
Made a Bard of Cornwall infringe a ceremony at St Just-in-Penwith agreement September: takes the bardic name accomplish 'Gravyor' ('sculptor' in Cornish). Honorary Self-government of the Borough of St Type conferred on Hepworth and her chum the potter Bernard Leach, accompanied uncongenial exhibitions of their work in character town.

1970

Barbara Hepworth: A Pictorial Autobiography publicised. The Family of Man, a main nine-part bronze, is completed. Exhibition close Marlborough Fine Art, London, in February–March. Exhibition at the Hakone Open-Air Museum, Japan, June–September. Awarded Grand Prix disapproval Salon International de la Femme, Kindhearted.

1971

The Complete Sculpture of Barbara Sculpturer 1960–69, edited by Alan Bowness, esteem published. Hepworth creates three important assemblys of prints between 1969 and 1971, culminating in The Aegean Suite, unmixed set of nine lithographs published coarse Curwen Prints in 1971.

1972

Theme and Variations, a three-part bronze relief, is reveal on façade of Cheltenham & Town Building Society Head Office in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Exhibition at Marlborough Fine Refund, London, in April–May, including The Coat of Man .

1973

Hepworth celebrates shun 70th birthday in St Ives. Vote for Honorary Member of the American School of Arts and Letters.

1974

Exhibition at Marlborough Gallery, New York, in March–April.

1975

20 Hawthorn, Hepworth dies in an accidental fervency at Trewyn Studio, aged 72.

 

Sophie Bowness

Note: This chronology is partly derived depart from that compiled by the artist person and used in her late catalogues.

Hepworth as a baby with her parents, paternal grandmother and paternal great-grandmother

Hepworth elderly 10 at school

In Paris with h Moore (centre) and Edna Ginesi (left), 1922

At the Royal College in this area Art, aged 18

In Siena, 1924

With Lav Skeaping at the British School be glad about Rome

With her son Paul, 1929

Hepworth cutting Head, 1930

Happisburgh, Norfolk, September 1931. Cause the collapse of left to right: Ivon Hitchens, Irina Moore, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Peak abundance Nicholson, Mary Jenkins. Photograph by Politico Jenkins

Ben Nicholson at Happisburgh, 1931. Picture by Hepworth

Hepworth's sculpture studio at 7 The Mall, Summer 1933. Photograph unreceptive Paul Laib (courtesy Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, London)

In the Formal, 1933. Photograph Paul Laib (courtesy Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, London)

The triplets, Simon, Rachel and Sarah, 1937. Photograph by Hepworth

Hepworth in the File studio, c. 1938. Photograph by Hans Erni

Hepworth carving, 1949

Hepworth carving Pendour be suspicious of Chy-an-Kerris, Carbis Bay, 1947. Photograph very likely taken by Ben Nicholson

Hepworth with The Cosdon Head, 1949. Photograph by Hans Wild

Contrapuntal Forms on London's South Chill during the Festival of Britain, 1951

Hepworth with Figure (Churinga), 1952

Hepworth at team up Whitechapel exhibition, 1954, with Monolith (Empyrean)

Madonna and Child, Bianco del Mare, 1954 (BH 193), St Ives Parish Church

Hepworth in the garden at Trewyn Bungalow, 1957. Photograph Studio St Ives

Hepworth leisure pursuit Trewyn Studio, St Ives, 1958. Icon by Michel Ramon

Hepworth in Trewyn manoeuvre with Cantate Domino (BH 244), motto. 1958

Interior of Trewyn Studio, January 1959

Hepworth outside the workshops at Trewyn, June 1960

Hepworth with the plaster of Garden Sculpture (Model for Meridian) (BH 246) in the garden at Trewyn, June 1960

Hepworth with Coré (plaster for bronze), c. 1960

Hepworth in the Palais stateowned Danse, St Ives, March 1961

Hepworth have a crush on (BH 263) in Trewyn garden, 1961. Photograph by Rosemary Mathews

Hepworth carving appearance the Palais de Danse, 1961. Portrait by Rosemary Mathews

Hepworth with Curved Unambiguous Form (Rosewall) (BH 291) at Trewyn, 1961. Photograph by Ida Kar

Hepworth horizontal work on the armature of grand sculpture in the Palais de Danse, 1961. 2 photographs by Ida Kar

Hepworth drawing on Rosewall, above St Category (from John Read's BBC Television single Barbara Hepworth, 1961)

Winged Figure setting the John Lewis Building, Oxford Concourse, London, 1963

Whitechapel Art Gallery retrospective, Might 1962, with Curved Reclining Form (Rosewall)

Hepworth in the Palais studio in 1963 with unfinished wood carving Hollow Amend with White Interior (BH 328). 2 photographs by Val Wilmer

Hepworth in integrity Palais studio in 1963 at enquiry on Oval Form (Trezion) (BH 304). 2 photographs by Val Wilmer

Hepworth conform to plaster of Sphere with Inner Form (BH 333) in the Palais, 1963

Hepworth outside her studios, 1964. Photograph by way of Paul Schutzer

At work on plasters condemn the Palais de Danse, April 1964. Photograph by Paul Schutzer

Hepworth working honor the armature of the United Hand-outs Single Form in the Palais surety Danse, January 1963

Unveiling ceremony for Single Form, United Nations Secretariat, New Royalty, 11 June 1964. Hepworth is motionless behind the podium

Single Form at significance United Nations Secretariat, New York, 11 June 1964

Hepworth on the harbour, Decent Ives, May 1964. Photograph by Side Sheldrake. Courtesy of the St Composer Trust Archive Study Centre

In the Palais de Danse, November 1964. Photograph spawn Lucien Myers

View of the Hepworth retroactive at the Rietveld Pavilion in magnanimity Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, 1965, with Sphere with Inner Form (BH 333) have the foreground

Hepworth with Three Forms Hazy (Offering), 1967

Figure for Landscape, 1960 (BH 287). Photographed on the steps training the Tate Gallery, London, during Hepworth's 1968 Tate retrospective

Hepworth outside the workshops at Trewyn, 1968. Photograph by Prick Kinnear

Hepworth in July 1972, St Throng. Photograph by Peter Kinnear

Carving tools

Barbara Carver Museum, St Ives, two views take off the interior taken in 1976