Barbara Hepworth: Writing and Conversations

Description

This collection reveals the remarkably eloquent writings and conversations of sculptor Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975). The compilation finally makes available previously out-of-print and inaccessible writings, and includes a significant number of unpublished texts.

A surprisingly large body of work, it spans almost the whole of Hepworth’s artistic life. Her gift for language and desire to communicate to a public are evident throughout. Alongside the writings are Hepworth’s lectures and speeches, a selection of interviews and conversations with writers and journalists, and radio and television broadcasts.

The collection sheds new light on Hepworth’s life, her artistic practices, the sources of her inspiration, the breadth of her intellectual interests, and her deep engagement with contemporary politics and society, from the United Nations to St. Ives. Images include replications of the sculptor’s manuscripts and archive photographs from Hepworth’s own collection.

Barbara Hepworth was a British sculptor, who was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire in 1903. She was a leading figure in the international art scene throughout a career spanning five decades. Though concerned with form and abstraction, Hepworth’s art was primarily about relationships: not merely between two forms presented side-by-side, but between the human figure and the landscape, colour and texture, and most importantly between people at an individual and social level.

Edited by Sophie Bowness, Hepworth’s grand-daughter, this book takes a highly personal look into the mind of this remarkable artist.