Art that Made Us TV - Tim Marlow TV - Dr James Fox TV - Barbara Hepworth -
For the socially committed Hepworth, Contrapuntal Forms’s final home [Harlow] is the ideal one. Art that Made Us VII: Wars and Peace, BBC 2022
Epstein’s work was no stranger to controversy ... What he did was throw down a gauntlet that was pivotally picked up by younger British sculptors not least Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. The sculptural language of Moore and Hepworth was developed in the 20s and 30s through the use of direct carving. Tim Marlow on ... British Sculpture 2011
Her [Hepworth] and Moore are forging a dialogue between sculptural space and form and sculpture in a public space ... Hepworth and Moore very much leading the way, and making it clear that the idea of a British modern sculptural tradition had very much been established and was existing in an international context. ibid.
From the moment she met Ben Nicholson, Barbara [Hepworth] abandoned her figurative style and converted to Ben’s modernist cause. Dr James Fox, The Art of Cornwall, BBC 2010
With Nicholson and Hepworth the new outpost of international modernism had been formed here. ibid.
Garbo was an even more unlikely presence in Cornwall than Hepworth and Nicholson. ibid.
A wave of young artists now poured into St Ives. ibid.
The Festival of Britain was a blueprint for the world of tomorrow. And the nation’s artists were all asked to contribute. None however had quite the impact of Barbara’s monumental work Contrapunctal Forms. ibid.
He [Ben] was insanely jealous. Spurred on by this the 1950s became a prolific period for Ben too. He exhibited around the world. His work was snapped up by the best museums. And he won virtually every international prize going. Critics even dubbed him the British Picasso. ibid.
The break with Ben was the most traumatic event in Barbara’s life. ibid.
It may be that the sensation of being a woman presents another emphasis in art, and particularly in terms of sculpture, for there is a whole range of perception belonging to feminine experience. So many ideas spring from an inside response to form. Barbara Hepworth
Carving is interrelated masses conveying an emotion: a perfect relationship between the mind and the colour, light and weight which is the stone, made by the hand which feels. Barbara Hepworth
It is easy now to communicate with people through abstraction, and particularly so in sculpture. Since the whole body reacts to its presence, people become themselves a living part of the whole. Barbara Hepworth
Before I start carving the idea must be almost complete. I say ‘almost’ because the really important thing seems to be the sculptor’s ability to let his intuition guide him over the gap between conception and realization without compromising the integrity of the original idea; the point being that the material has vitality – it resists and makes demands. Barbara Hepworth