Barbara Hepworth

A British Sculptor and leading artist in the international art scene. Her career spanned the course of five
decades and she was the first female modernist sculptor. She studied and worked alongside the equally
infamous British sculptor, Henry Moore. Both were pioneers of the avant-garde movement and method
of ‘Direct Carving’.

Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth DBE (10 January 1903 – 20 May 1975) was an English artist and
sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. She was one of the few
female artists of her generation to achieve international prominence. Along with artists such as Ben
Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a leading figure in the colony of artists who resided in St Ives
during the Second World War.

Despite attempting to gain a position in what was a male-dominated environment, Hepworth

successfully won a county scholarship to attend the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London, and
studied there from 1921 until she was awarded the diploma of the Royal College of Art in 1924.
About Barbara:

 She believed that sculptures should be touched.

 She wanted to create sculptures that made people calm to look at.
 Her sculptures were inspired by nature and the landscape.
 She wanted them to be set within nature, to be looked through, over,
under and around.
 From 1925-1975 she created more than 600 sculptures.
Sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts.
Durable sculptural processes originally used carving in stone, metal, ceramics, wood and other
materials but, since Modernism, there has been an almost complete freedom of materials and process.
A wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or
modelling, or molded or cast.
Sculpture in stone survives far better than works of art in perishable materials, and often represents
the majority of the surviving works (other than pottery) from ancient cultures, though conversely
traditions of sculpture in wood may have vanished almost entirely. However, most ancient sculpture
was brightly painted, and this has been lost

Sculpture has been central in religious devotion in many cultures, and until recent centuries large
sculptures, too expensive for private individuals to create, were usually an expression of religion or
politics. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient
Mediterranean, India and China, as well as many in Central and South America and Africa.