Dame Barbara Hepworth

Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975), English sculptor, known for her abstract works in stone, metal, and wood. Born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, Hepworth studied at the Leeds School of Art (1920-1921) and the Royal College of Art in London (1921-1924). Important early influences on her work were the sculptures of Jean Arp and Constantin Brancusi, as well as the work of her friend Henry Moore.

She first conceived of piercing a carving in 1931; thereafter, most of her work was pierced by voids, which were sometimes painted or fitted with a network of string or wire. Her works in every sculptural medium are notable for their superb finishes. With her husband, the abstract painter-sculptor Ben Nicholson, whom she met in 1931, she was instrumental in creating the English abstract art movement of the 1930s. She moved to St Ives (see St Ives School), in Cornwall, in 1939 and lived there until her death in a fire at her studio.

Hepworth and Moore emerged after World War II as the foremost English sculptors of their age. In later years her sculptures grew increasingly monumental and slab-like, as in the Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial (1964) at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Hepworth was the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Grand Prix for plastic art at the Biennial of Modern Art in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1959. She was made a CBE in 1958 and a dame in 1965. Her studio and garden were opened to the public, as the Barbara Hepworth Museum, in 1976.