Barbara Hepworth

We authenticate, certify, issue certificates of authenticity (COA), appraise the value and broker the sale of sculptures, paintings and prints by Barbara HEPWORTH.

British.

Born in 1903, Wakefield, England.

Died in 1975, Saint Ives, England, aged 72.

She spent most of her life in England. She also notably travelled to Italy and France during her years as a fine art student at the Royal College of Arts, London.

Typical Subject Matter:

After an initial period during which she created figurative works, she soon turned to abstraction and became a major figure of abstract sculpture in 20th-century Europe.

Her first sculptures depict animals in a minimal manner, that allowed her to escape the constraints of the figurative tradition and drew her shapes towards abstraction.

In the 1930s, she became a leading artist in the Nouveau Mouvement, a movement that focused on exploring form for itself, independently of any identifiable subject.

Typical Style:

She is renowned for her abstract sculptures playing with volumes and voids. The voids are the major characteristic to identify works of hers. Her sculptures typically alternate concave and convex forms. Organic shapes interact with more geometric forms in her compositions.

These shapes are formed by solid volumes that often surround one or several voids. As part of her work with the New Movement, Barbara HEPWORTH did not experiment with clay or plaster as part of the traditional stages of a sculptor’s creative process. She instead worked directly with the material to achieve a spontaneous form.

She also gradually added strings to her sculptures, which are typically stretched across hollows and voids, and sometimes cross and sometimes run parallel. The surfaces of her works are smooth and polished, and the edges are sharped. Barbara Hepworth was one of the many artists who did not sign all their works.

Typical Material and Media:

Throughout her career, she constantly experimented with a wide range of materials, including different types of stone – marble, limestone, Hoptonwood, Portland and alabaster in a variety of shades – and slate, as well as exotic woods, often in warm colours – teak, sycamore, redwood, ebony, mahogany, rosewood, Burma wood – and sometimes added strings to her sculpted structures.

An important number of her commissioned and public works were furthermore edited in bronze.

She also occasionally worked in oil and pen on paper or on Masonite for her two-dimensional works, as well as in different techniques of print on paper.

If you own a sculpture, a painting or a print by or attributed to Barbara Hepworth, we would like to learn about it. Please send us photos or contact us at [email protected]. You will generally receive a response within 24 hours.