Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975)

Hepworth explained her use of bronze as a medium for sculpture during the late 1950s and early 1960s: 'The reason Henry Moore and I do good bronzes is because we are good carvers. But I can say that all our original carvings, have, in 45 years been biffed, banged, bruised, broken and boiled so that they are cracked. No wonder the young take to polystyrene. I only learned to love bronze when I found that it was gentle and I could file it and carve it and chisel it. Each one is a 'person' to me - as much as a marble' (see P. Curtis and A.G. Wilkinson, Barbara Hepworth A Retrospective, catalogue for the exhibition at the Tate Gallery, Liverpool, 1994, p. 142).