Lot 37
37
THE PROPERTY OF AN AMERICAN COLLECTOR
Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975)

Phoenix

Details
Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975)
Phoenix
yew wood
39½ in. (100 cm.) high
Carved in 1954
Provenance
A.F.C. Turner; Sotheby's, 9 July 1969, lot 176, where purchased by the present owner.
Literature
J.P. Hodin, Barbara Hepworth, London, 1961, p.168, no.194 (illustrated).
A.M. Hammacher, Barbara Hepworth, London, 1968, pp.116, 209, no.88 (illustrated).
Sotheby's, Art at Auction, London, 1969, p.265 (illustrated).
Exhibited
London, Gimpel Fils, Barbara Hepworth, June 1956, no.1.

Lot Essay

In April 1954, the year of this carving, saw the opening of Hepworth's major retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery. Bryan Robertson in the preface to the Whitechapel retrospective (Barbara Hepworth, Whitechapel Exhibition Catalogue, 1952, p.2) writes 'in 1954, visitors ... saw for the first time that her sculpture was warm, eloquent, extremely sensuous, surprisingly easy to explore and experience and that above all it was beautiful. An entire revolution in taste and vision had taken place'.

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