About Barbara Hepworth
Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth (10 January 1903 – 20 May 1975) was an English sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. 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. Born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, Hepworth studied at Leeds School of Art and the Royal College of Art in the 1920s. She married the sculptor John Skeaping in 1925. In 1931 she fell in love with the painter Ben Nicholson, and in 1933 divorced Skeaping. At this time she was part of a circle of modern artists centred on Hampstead, London, and was one of the founders of the art movement Unit One. At the beginning of the Second World War Hepworth and Nicholson moved to St Ives, Cornwall, where she would remain for the rest of her life. Best known as a sculptor, Hepworth also produced drawings – including a series of sketches of operating rooms following the hospitalisation of her daughter in 1944 – and lithographs. She died in a fire at her studio in 1975. Hepworth attended Wakefield Girls' High School, where she was awarded music prizes at the age of 12 and won a scholarship to study at the Leeds School of Art from 1920. Hepworth was also the runner-up for the Prix-de-Rome, which the sculptor John Skeaping won. In 1931, Hepworth was the first to sculpt the pierced figures that are characteristic of both her own work and, later, that of Henry Moore. Hepworth later became involved with the Paris-based art movement, Abstraction-Création.
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