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拍品專文
In 1931 Barbara Hepworth produced a small wooden carving Pierced Form, which is now considered to be a landmark work in the history of twentieth century sculpture. With this work Hepworth became the first English sculptor to decisively penetrate the internal space of sculpture. Indeed, her evocative flirtations with space, depth and three-dimensionality during the inter-war period have proved an inspiration for succeeding generations. The questions raised by Hepworth's art, the ideas it explores have a timeless validity in their investigations of the three-dimensional and the interconnectedness of humanity with space and art. The piercing of Hepworth's sculpture should be understood as it would have been at the time of its inception - resulting in a vision of sculpture that was as iconoclastic as Cubism in its subversion of academic conventions. As with Cubism, there was no turning back as Pierced Form had repercussions that have provided a constant challenge to contemporary artists.
Born in 1903, Hepworth was brought up in Yorkshire and attended Leeds School of Art after secretly sitting the scholarship exam under the encouragement of her head teacher. After just three terms at Leeds, Hepworth was awarded a major scholarship to attend the Royal Collage of Art in London, where her contemporaries included Henry Moore. Travelling on a further scholarship from West Riding, Hepworth's growing enthusiasm for classical art was consolidated after her visit to Italy in 1924. Hepworth married her travelling companion, John Skeaping, a fellow sculptor and academic. This marriage however, dissolved upon their return to England in 1926 and in 1931 Hepworth met Ben Nicholson, the painter, during his show at the Bloomsbury Group. The two married and spent their early careers working and exhibiting together. It was a relationship that provided mutual inspiration, encouragement and reciprocal enhancement of each other's aesthetic notions. Artists from across Europe gravitated towards the couple who came to know some of the leading figures of their time, including Picasso and Braque, whose adventures into Cubism were so revelatory to Hepworth when she first entered art school. International contacts were easier to sustain before the Second World War and the couple effectively built themselves an intellectual oasis that included the artists Constantin Brancusi, Hans Arp and Naum Gabo, among others. The assemblage of such talents provided a stimulating environment for intellectual exchange, conducive to the development of their ideas on art.
Hepworth moved to St Ives, Cornwall during the war, which had creative as well as practical advantages at this time, enabling her to become fully immersed in her work. Cornwall was the site of a large artistic community and her activity within it while at St Ives is indicative of the importance to her and her art of intellectual exchange. Moreover, the good climate enabled Hepworth to work outside all the year round carving her sculpture.
Lyric Form continues Hepworth's use of the pierced, hollowed form. It was executed in 1948-49, when Hepworth had already settled in St Ives, Cornwall, which became her permanent home. Hardwoods such as mahogany, became Hepworth's favourite working material, organic in nature and ideal for such geomorphic forms. Lyric Form is a dynamically perceived work. The skilful execution of the carving invites the eye to glide across the surface of the wood and visually consume the intricate pattern of the grain, and the undulating lines and curves that articulate the form. For Hepworth, the piercing of her work is not a rupture or violent obtrusion into the sculpture, but rather a natural moulding of the entity into it's surroundings, but it may as well have been judging by it's effects on her contemporaries. Henry Moore was one of the first to use the same device extensively in his works. However, Hepworth's unfailing optimism never ceased to inform her work, perhaps unusually for an artist of this period in the wake of two world wars. Hepworth, by Baudelarian definition, was a truly modern artist, whose work combines the eternal with the fugitive and contingent. The form is sturdy and yet the vision changes as the viewer circumambulates the work and chases the light dancing across the surface. Hepworth holds these two opposing forces in balance in her art, stimulated by an interest and affinity with the classical sculpture of Greece and the Etruscans, and by her immersion in the academic community. Nothing is harsh with Hepworth, whose work, as exemplified by Lyric Form, resonates an enduring sense of peace and immutability.
Born in 1903, Hepworth was brought up in Yorkshire and attended Leeds School of Art after secretly sitting the scholarship exam under the encouragement of her head teacher. After just three terms at Leeds, Hepworth was awarded a major scholarship to attend the Royal Collage of Art in London, where her contemporaries included Henry Moore. Travelling on a further scholarship from West Riding, Hepworth's growing enthusiasm for classical art was consolidated after her visit to Italy in 1924. Hepworth married her travelling companion, John Skeaping, a fellow sculptor and academic. This marriage however, dissolved upon their return to England in 1926 and in 1931 Hepworth met Ben Nicholson, the painter, during his show at the Bloomsbury Group. The two married and spent their early careers working and exhibiting together. It was a relationship that provided mutual inspiration, encouragement and reciprocal enhancement of each other's aesthetic notions. Artists from across Europe gravitated towards the couple who came to know some of the leading figures of their time, including Picasso and Braque, whose adventures into Cubism were so revelatory to Hepworth when she first entered art school. International contacts were easier to sustain before the Second World War and the couple effectively built themselves an intellectual oasis that included the artists Constantin Brancusi, Hans Arp and Naum Gabo, among others. The assemblage of such talents provided a stimulating environment for intellectual exchange, conducive to the development of their ideas on art.
Hepworth moved to St Ives, Cornwall during the war, which had creative as well as practical advantages at this time, enabling her to become fully immersed in her work. Cornwall was the site of a large artistic community and her activity within it while at St Ives is indicative of the importance to her and her art of intellectual exchange. Moreover, the good climate enabled Hepworth to work outside all the year round carving her sculpture.
Lyric Form continues Hepworth's use of the pierced, hollowed form. It was executed in 1948-49, when Hepworth had already settled in St Ives, Cornwall, which became her permanent home. Hardwoods such as mahogany, became Hepworth's favourite working material, organic in nature and ideal for such geomorphic forms. Lyric Form is a dynamically perceived work. The skilful execution of the carving invites the eye to glide across the surface of the wood and visually consume the intricate pattern of the grain, and the undulating lines and curves that articulate the form. For Hepworth, the piercing of her work is not a rupture or violent obtrusion into the sculpture, but rather a natural moulding of the entity into it's surroundings, but it may as well have been judging by it's effects on her contemporaries. Henry Moore was one of the first to use the same device extensively in his works. However, Hepworth's unfailing optimism never ceased to inform her work, perhaps unusually for an artist of this period in the wake of two world wars. Hepworth, by Baudelarian definition, was a truly modern artist, whose work combines the eternal with the fugitive and contingent. The form is sturdy and yet the vision changes as the viewer circumambulates the work and chases the light dancing across the surface. Hepworth holds these two opposing forces in balance in her art, stimulated by an interest and affinity with the classical sculpture of Greece and the Etruscans, and by her immersion in the academic community. Nothing is harsh with Hepworth, whose work, as exemplified by Lyric Form, resonates an enduring sense of peace and immutability.