Barbara Hepworth
Barbara Hepworth
Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth DBEwas an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. She was one of the few female artists 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...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionSculptor
Date of Birth10 January 1903
art body creation
Body experience... is the centre of creation.
art past imitation
My works are an imitation of my own past and present.
thinking artist community
The naturalness of life... the sense of community is, I think, a very important factor in an artist's life.
art memories father
All my early memories are of forms and shapes and textures. Moving through and over the West Riding landscape with my father in his car, the hills were sculptures; the roads defined the form. Above all, there was the sensation of moving physically over the contours of fullnessess and concavities, through hollows and over peaks - feeling, touching, seeing, through mind and hand and eye. This sensation has never left me. I, the sculptor, am the landscape. I am the form and the hollow, the thrust and the contour.
art men wish
At no point do I wish to be in conflict with any man or masculine thought. It doesn't enter my consciousness. Art is anonymous. It's not competitive with men. It's a complementary contribution.
art body draws
I rarely draw what I see. I draw what I feel in my body.
succeed failing united-nations
The United Nations is our conscience. If it succeeds it is our success. If it fails it is our failure.
yield hybridity produce
Halfway through any work, one is often tempted to go off on a tangent. Once you have yielded, you will be tempted to yield again and again... Finally, you would only produce something hybrid.
block sheep sculpture
I love my blocks of marble, always piling up in the yard like a flock of sheep.
principles sculpture passionate
The sculptor must search with passionate intensity for the underlying principle of the organisation of mass and tension - the meaning of gesture and the structure of rhythm.
yield details tiny
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.
form hollow thrust
I am the form and I am the hollow, the thrust and the contour
form impulse clear
I must always have a clear image of the form of a work before I begin. Otherwise there is no impulse to create.
order space purpose
I felt the most intense pleasure in piercing the stone in order to make an abstract form and space; quite a different sensation from that of doing it for the purpose of realism.