Combining Hepworth’s public statements with her private correspondences, this fascinating biography offers a penetrating insight into the remarkable life, work and legacy of this singular artist.
Hepworth was reproached for single-mindedness in her lifetime, with critics and commentators framing both the artist and her work as ‘cool and restrained’. A continued focus on her modernist abstract sculpture of the 1930s and its relation to the work of her male contemporaries has left elements of her work and related passions overlooked. This fully illustrated account of her life and work reflects for the first time Hepworth’s multifaceted and interdisciplinary approach, bringing together as never before her interests in dance, music, poetry, contemporary politics, science and technology; her engagement with these fields through friends and networks as well as her artistic practice; and the ways in which she fused sometimes seemingly conflicting disciplines and ideas into one coherent and inspirational philosophy of art and life.
Hepworth was reproached for single-mindedness in her lifetime, with critics and commentators framing both the artist and her work as ‘cool and restrained’. A continued focus on her modernist abstract sculpture of the 1930s and its relation to the work of her male contemporaries has left elements of her work and related passions overlooked. This fully illustrated account of her life and work reflects for the first time Hepworth’s multifaceted and interdisciplinary approach, bringing together as never before her interests in dance, music, poetry, contemporary politics, science and technology; her engagement with these fields through friends and networks as well as her artistic practice; and the ways in which she fused sometimes seemingly conflicting disciplines and ideas into one coherent and inspirational philosophy of art and life.
Publication date: 2021-06-03
ISBN: 9780500094440
Foreword
Introduction
1. The Shadow Dance
2. An Expanding World
3. Material Harmony
4. A New Order
5. Mother & Child
6. Artists for Peace
7. War Work
8. Landscape Sculpture
9. Concentration, Movement & Gesture
10. Fierce Counterpoint
11. Rhythmic Form
12. The Aegean Suite
13. Forms Ascending
14. Single Form
15. Affirmation of Life
16. Sun & Moon
Introduction
1. The Shadow Dance
2. An Expanding World
3. Material Harmony
4. A New Order
5. Mother & Child
6. Artists for Peace
7. War Work
8. Landscape Sculpture
9. Concentration, Movement & Gesture
10. Fierce Counterpoint
11. Rhythmic Form
12. The Aegean Suite
13. Forms Ascending
14. Single Form
15. Affirmation of Life
16. Sun & Moon
Press Reviews
Literary Review
Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times
Guardian
Hettie Judah, The i
About the Author
Eleanor Clayton is Curator at The Hepworth Wakefield and a Barbara Hepworth specialist. As Assistant Curator: Exhibitions and Displays at Tate Liverpool (2010–14), she curated displays around Hepworth’s work and contributed to the Tate’s Hepworth Research Forum in the development of the exhibition ‘Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture for a Modern World’ at Tate Britain in 2015. Ali Smith is one of Britain’s leading contemporary novelists.
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