Forms in Space

細節

Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975)
Forms in Space
signed and dated 'Barbara Hepworth 1946' (lower right)
coloured crayon, bodycolour and pencil on gesso-prepared board
9 x 11 in. (23 x 28 cm.)

來源

with Piccadilly Gallery, London, April 1964, where purchased by the present owner.

注意事項

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拍品專文

Before the outbreak of World War II, Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth moved to Cornwall, initially staying with the artists, Adrian Stokes and Margaret Mellis, and then moving to Carbis Bay, St Ives. The wartime restrictions meant a lack of available materials and, possibly frustrated, Hepworth turned to working two-dimensionally, composing 'imaginary sculptures' on paper, of which the present work is an example. Chris Stephens comments, 'She [Hepworth] explained how she conceived them spatially: 'they are not just a way of amusing myself nor are they experimental probings - they are my sculptures born in the disguise of two dimensions'. They rarely led directly to actual carvings, but were, rather 'a form of exploration ... abstract in essence - relating to colour and form but existing in their own right'. The patterns of lines often seem to suggest a sculpture of curving planes and strings wrapped and enfolded around the coloured focal point at the core. An obvious comparison is with the work of Naum Gabo, to whom Hepworth was especially close in the early years of the war. The implied transparency of these linear 'sculptures' naturally recalls his Perspex constructions and in particular Spiral Theme, 1941 [Tate, London], in which planes and lines spiral up from a near-circular base, etched with striations, to enclose a coiled form at its core. Clearly they also related to her own Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red) [lot 150] and to the earlier Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red, 1939 [J.P. Hodin, Barbara Hepworth, Neuchâtel and London, 1961, p. 165, no. 113], which was the only work that Hepworth took with her to Cornwall. The artist described on drawing as 'almost a mobile', suggesting a comparison with the brightly coloured kinetic works of her friend Alexander Calder. It may be significant that one version of Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red) is mounted on a turntable offering the potential for shifting perspectives, like those suggested by the drawings, on the relationship of blue and white, surface and string, inside and outside' (see C. Stephens (ed.), exhibition catalogue, Barbara Hepworth Centenary, St Ives, Tate Gallery, 2003, p. 71).