This film is part of Free

Hepworth on Form

Barbara Hepworth discusses a life of dedication to visual arts.

News 1973 4 mins

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Overview

Barbara Hepworth is interviewed in situ at her Trewyn Studio garden in St Ives. Hepworth visited St Ives in 1939 with husband Ben Nicholson and went on to live there until her death in an accidental fire in 1975. Hepworth believed her childhood in Yorkshire inspired her work as well as a personal life that was to include triumph and tragedy. All shown artworks are the copyright of Bowness. From 1980 the Tate curates the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden.

At the Leeds School of Art Hepworth befriended fellow student Henry Moore and a professional rivalry developed. They received scholarships to the Royal Academy of Art in London where they carved pieces directly experimenting with shapes and materials and returning to primitive forms rooted in nature giving abstract sculpture its popular appeal. Contrapuntal Forms (1950) is a sculpture of double figures in Irish blue limestone made for the 1951 Festival of Britain and later presented to the new town of Harlow in Essex and her bronze statue Single Form (1964) is situated outside the United Nations building in New York. Hepworth and Nicholson co-founded the Penwith Society of Arts at the Castle Inn in 1949.