Born on this date in 1903: Dame Barbara Hepworth, English sculptor, considered among the greatest sculptors of the twentieth century. From 1925 to her death in 1975, Hepworth made more than 600 works of sculpture.
- Her full name was Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth. She was born in Wakefield. Her father Herbert was a civil engineer who became County Surveyor in 1921.
- She knew from the age of 12 that she wanted to be a sculptor. She attended the Leeds School of Art in 1919. She won a scholarship to the prestigious Royal College of Art (RCA), where she studied from 1921 to 1924.
- While she was studying in Leeds, she made a lifelong friend – a fellow sculptor whose name was Henry Moore. They developed a friendly professional rivalry and influenced each other’s work.
- She married twice. Her first husband was also a sculptor, John Skeaping, who she first met at RCA. They travelled together in Italy when Hepworth was awarded a West Riding Scholarship for one year’s travel abroad. They married in 1925 and had one son, Paul, who died in an air crash while serving in the RAF in Thailand. The couple used to exhibit their work from their London flat. They divorced in 1933. In 1934 she met English abstract painter Ben Nicholson. He was married, but they had an affair which produced triplets, Sarah, Rachel, and Simon. Ben divorced his wife and married Barbara in 1938. This marriage lasted until 1951, when they divorced.
- It was in 1931 that she started making sculptures with holes in. Her first such work is the celebrated sculpture Pierced Form. Her friend Henry Moore is also known for sculptures with holes in, but it was Hepworth who did it first.
- She didn’t just make sculptures. She is famous for drawings, too. Her most famous drawings are of surgeons at work, focusing on their hands. Those came about after her daughter Sarah was in hospital in 1944. She befriended a surgeon called Norman Capener, who allowed her to watch surgeons at work, after which she produced about 80 drawings. There was, she said, ‘a close affinity between the work and approach both of physicians and surgeons, and painters and sculptors’.
- Her largest sculpture is Single Form, which is displayed outside the United Nations headquarters in New York. It is 21 feet high and weighs over 5 tonnes. It was created in memory of her friend, Dag Hammaskjold, the 2nd Secretary-General of UN. He was killed in 1961 en route to cease-fire negotiations and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously.
- When the second world war broke out, she moved with her husband and children to St Ives in Cornwall, where they became part of a community of artists. In 1960, she bought a former cinema and dance hall, the Palais de Danse, which gave her the space to make bigger sculptures. She was given the Freedom of St. Ives award in 1968 in acknowledgement of her contributions to the community.
- She was made a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1958 and a DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1965.
- She died in 1975, aged 72, as a result of a fire in her studio at Trewyn, which is now the Barbara Hepworth Museum and is managed by the Tate gallery.
New Year New Reading Challenge?
I can help. Here are links to books which meet potential criteria:
A title with three words
- Death and Faxes
- Killing Me Softly
- Settling the Score
- Secrets and Skies
- Over the Rainbow
- Closing the Circle
A title with six words
A book with a number in the title
A book with a colour in the title
Short story collections/A book with a green cover
A book published in the last year/during lockdown
A book you can finish in a day/A book under 200 pages
A book featuring characters from a deck of cards
A Book set during Christmas
A book with a place in the title
A Debut novel
A book with a plant or flower on the cover/A book about siblings
A book with a female villain or criminal
Includes space travel
Features Royalty
Books featuring skiing or snowboarding
A book with the Olympic games in it
A book with a bird in the title
A book featuring a secret society
A book featuring time travel/alternative dimensions
Raiders Trilogy:
Books featuring superheroes
Books featuring ghosts
From an Indie Publisher/Self published/An author you've not read before/A female author/A genre you wouldn't normally read/A book outside your comfort zone/A book by an author with your initials and your initials are JH
All of them!
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