BARBARA HEPWORTH, her quotes on abstract sculpture art & biography story by the famous English woman-artist / sculptor
Barbara Hepworth (1903 – 1975), her quotes by the English woman sculptor – creating her famous abstract Ovals sculptures in English Modernism. Hepworth is famous for being one of the first sculptors in modern art who started piercing the stone, like also Henry Moore did in the same period. Barbara Hepworth is famous for her many abstract ‘Ovals’, mainly stone sculptures she made by piercing the stone; creating an interior and an exterior spatial dimension in one sculpture. All her life the oval or ovoid shapes kept fascinating her.
* At the bottom are some art links for more biography facts and images of sculpture art of the famous English woman-artist Barbara Hepworth. – the editor
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Barbara Hepworth: ‘Forms in movement’, 1957-59 |
Barbara Hepworth, her quotes & statements on sculpture art and her private life
– I do not want to make a stone horse that is trying to and cannot smell the air. How lovely is the horse’s sensitive nose, the dogs moving ears and deep eyes; but to me these are not stone forms and the love of them and the emotion can only be expressed in more abstract terms. I do not want to make a machine that cannot fulfill its essential purpose; but to make exactly the right relation of masses, a living thing in stone, to express my awareness and thought of these things.
* source of Barbara Hepworth’s artist quote on her sculpture art and her relation with the chosen subjects of her art; from the text ‘Unit one’ 1934; as quoted in “Voicing our visions, -Writings by women artists”, ed. by Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York 1991, p. 279.
– A constructive work is an embodiment of freedom itself, and is unconsciously perceived, even by those who are consciously against it. The desire to live is the strongest universal emotion, it springs from the depths of our unconscious sensibility – and the desire to give life is our most potent, constructive, conscious expression of this intuition.
* Barabara Hepworth’s quote from ‘Circle’ 1937; as quoted in “Voicing our visions, -Writings by women artists”, ed. by Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York 1991, p. 279
– I have always been interested in oval or ovoid shapes. The first carvings were simple realistic oval forms of the human head or of a bird. Gradually my interest grew in more abstract values – the weight, poise and curvature of the ovoid as a basic form. The carving and piercing of such a form seems to open up an infinite variety of continuous curves in the third dimension, changing in accordance with the contours of the original ovoid and with the degree of penetration of the material. Here is a sufficient field for exploration to last a lifetime…
* source of Hepworth’s artist quote on her favorite form of the Oval in her later developed abstract sculpture art, in; ‘The Studio 132:643’’, 1946; as quoted in “Voicing our visions, -Writings by women artists”, ed. by Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York 1991, p. 279.
– 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….
* Hepworth’s artist quote on the phase before carving the stone and the intuition later in the carving process of the sculpture, in; ‘The Studio 132:643’, 1946; as quoted in “Voicing our visions, -Writings by women artists”, ed. by Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York 1991, p. 279.
– I have been deeply interested during the last ten years in the use of colour with form. I have applied oil colour – white, grey, and blues of different degrees of tone… …I have been very influenced by the natural colour and luminosity in stones and woods and the change in colour as light travels over the surface contours. When I pierced the material tight through a great change seemed to take place in the concavities from which direct light was excluded. From this experience my use of colour developed.
* source of Barbara Hepworth’s artist quote on the importance of colour in her three-dimensional abstract sculptures and the role of light in it; taken from the text ‘The Studio 132:643’, 1946; as quoted in “Voicing our visions, -Writings by women artists”, ed. by Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York 1991, p. 279.
– I have gained very great inspiration from the Cornish land- and seascape, the horizontal line of the sea and the quality of light and colour which reminds me of the Mediterranean light and colour which so excites one’s sense of form; and first and last there is the human figure which in the country becomes a free and moving part of a greater whole. This relationship between figure and landscape is vitally important to me. I cannot feel it in a city.
* Hepworth’s artist quote, referring to the important influence of the landscape for her sculpture art; ‘The Studio 132:643’, 1946; as quoted in “Voicing our visions, -Writings by women artists”, ed. by Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York 1991, p. 280.)
– I cannot write anything about landscape without writing about the human figure and the human spirit inhabiting the landscape, for me, the whole art sculpture is a fusion of these two element – the balance of sensation and the evocation of man in his universe. Every work in sculpture is either a figure I see, or a sensation I have, whether in Yorkshire, Cornwall or Greece, or the Mediterranean.
* Barbara Hepworth’s artist quote, expressing the relation between landscape and human figure for her sculpture art, in; ‘Studio International 171’ – June 1966, p. 280.
– Whenever I am embraced by land and seascape I draw ideas for new sculptures; new forms to touch and walk around, new people to embrace, with an exactitude of form that those without sight can hold and realize… …It is essentially practical and passionate.
* Hepworth’s quote, expressing the important inspiration by the landscape for her sculpture forms, from ‘Studio International 171’ – June 1966, p. 280.
– Sculpture is, in the twentieth century, a wide field of experience, with many facets of symbol and material and individual calligraphy. But in all these varied and exciting extensions of our experience we always come back to the fact that we are human beings of such and such a size, biologically the same as primitive man, and that it is through drawing and observing, or observing and drawing, that we equate our bodies with our landscape.
* Hepworth’s important quote on the relation between landscape and human figure through the human history of man; in her text in ‘Studio International 171’ – June 1966, p. 280.
– The Acropolis – the spaces between the columns – the depth of fluting’s to touch – the breadth, weight and volume – the magnificence of a single marble bole up-ended -. The passionate warm colour of the marble and all-pervading philosophic proportion and space.
* her artist quote in which Hepworth describes the classical aspects of proportion and space for sculpture and architecture; “Barbara Hepworth, ‘Greek diary”; J.P Hodin, European Critic; London: Corby, Adams and MacKay, 1965.
– Ascended Kynthos alone, the cave of Apollo – half-way magnificent and majestic. A pool with fine fig trees nearby full of giant (sacred?) toads – leaping and barking. Also green frogs.
* quote in which Barbara Hepworth describe in her diary her visit to the cave of Appolo in Greece, in; “Barbara Hepworth, ‘Greek diary”; J.P Hodin, European Critic; London: Corby, Adams and MacKay, 1965.
– Saw a magnificent Koros – tall, fierce and passionate bigger than life size – in the Museum. A heavenly work – the backs and buttocks in relation to the hip and waist – an inspiration. I thought the fragment of leg and calf (attached below the knee) was falsely attributed.
* source of her art quote in which Barbara Hepworth admires a Koros sculpture during her Greece visit, in; “Barbara Hepworth, ‘Greek diary”; J.P Hodin, European Critic; London: Corby, Adams and MacKay, 1965.
– All my early memories are of forms and shapes and textures. Moving through and over the West Riding landscape with my father in his car, the hills were sculptures; the roads defined the forms. Above all, there was the sensation of moving physically over the contours of foulnesses and concavities, through hollows and over peaks – feeling, touching, seeing, through mind and hand and eye. This sensation has never left me. I, the sculptor, am the landscape. I am the form and I am the hollow, the thrust and the contour.
* her woman-artist quote in which Barbara memorizes the strong impact of landscape and hills in her youth already, during car trips with her father; taken from “Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography”, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1970, p. 280.
– Feelings about ideas and people and the world all about us struggle inside me to find the evocative symbol affirming these early and secure sensations – the feeling of the magic of man in a landscape, whether it be a pastoral image or a miner squatting in the rectangle of his door or the ‘Single form’ of a mill-girl moving against the wind, with her shawl wrapped round her head and body. On the lonely hills a human figure has the vitality and the poignancy of all man’s struggles in this universe.
* source of her quote, in; “Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography”, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1970, pp. 281-282.
– ‘Circle’ was published at last. Mondrian has made his studio opposite so very beautiful, and his company was always inspiring, as it had been in Paris when we used to visit him. After a while he really seemed to our domestic scene. His studio and Ben’s (the sculptor Ben Nicholson; Barbara was his wife then, fh) were most austere, but my studio was a jumble of children, rocks, sculptures, trees, importunate flowers and washing.
* source of her quote, referring to the studio of the famous Dutch De Stijl-artist Piet Mondrian in Paris, in; “Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography”, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1970, p. 283.
– I am not scientifically minded; but the forces between the ever-changing position of the sun and moon, and the effects upon sea and tide, and cloud and wind, which change the depths of shadow on forms have governed my life for a long time.
I began to get more and more turntables and to try to assess my own changing movements in relation to the sun.
Piercing through forms became dominant. Could I climb through and in what direction? Could I rest, lie or stand within the forms? Could I, at one and the same time, be the outside as well as the form within…?
* source of her very important quote on her attitude in ‘piercing the stone’ with a split attention for the inside and the outside of a sculpture;from “Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography”, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1970, p. 283.
– All landscape needs a figure – and when a sculptor is the spectator he is aware that every landscape evokes a special image. In creating this image the artist tries to find a synthesis of his human experience and the quality of the land-scape. The forms and piercings, the weight and poise of the concrete image also becomes evocative – a fusion of experience and myth.
* her quote on the influence of landscape on the artist in creating; in “Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography”, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1970, p. 283.
– We visited Meudon to see Hans Arp and though, to our disappointment, he was not there and his wife, Sofie Täuber showed us his studio. It was very quiet in the room so that one was aware of the movement in the forms… …I thought of the poetic idea in (Hans) Arp’s sculptures. I had never had any first-hand knowledge of the Dadaist movement, so that seeing his work for the first time freed me of many inhibitions and this helped me to see the figure in landscape with new eyes… …Perhaps in freeing himself from material demands his idea transcended all possible limitations. I began to imagine the earth rising and becoming human.
* source of her quote on the visit of the studio of the famous Dada sculptor in France: Hans Jean Arp;in “Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography”, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1970, p. 283.
– Our sense of touch is a fundamental sensibility which comes into action at birth – our stereo-gnostic sense – the ability to feel weight and form and assess its significance. The form which have had special meaning for me since childhood have been the standing form (which is the translation of my feelings towards the human being standing in the landscape) the two forms (which is the tender relation of one living thing besides another); and the closed form, such as the oval, spherical or pierced form (sometimes incorporating colour) which translates for me the association and meaning of gesture in landscape; in the repose of say a mother and child… …In all these shapes the translation of what one feels about man and nature must be conveyed by the sculptor in terms of mass, inner tension, and rhythm, scale in relation to our human size and the quality of surface which speaks through our hands and eyes.
* woman sculptor quote of Hepworth; taken from; “Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography”, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1970, p. 284.
– I think that the necessary equilibrium between the material that I carve and the form I want to make will always dictate and abstract interpretation in my sculpture – for there are essential stone shapes and essential wood shapes which are impossible for me to disregard. All my feeling has to be translated into this basic framework, for sculpture is the reaction of a real object which relates to our human body and spirit as well as to our visual appreciation of form and colour content.
* her sculptor quote of Hepworth, on the balance between the material and the form in her abstract sculpture art;from “Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography”, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1970, p. 285.
– The importance of light in relation to form will always interest me… …There is an inside and an outside to every form. When they are in special accord, as for instance a nut in its shell or a child in the womb, or in the structure of shells or crystals, or when one senses the architecture of bones in the human figure, then I am most drawn to the effect of light. Every shadow cast by the sun from an ever-varying angle reveals the harmony of the inside and outside. Light givers full play to our tactile perceptions through the experience of our eyes, and the vitality of forms is revealed by the interplay between space and volume.
* her artist quote on light, related to the inside and outside of a form; taken from “Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography”, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1970, p. 285.
– In my search for these values I like to work both realistically and abstractly. In my drawing and painting I turn from one to the other as a necessity or impulse and not because of a preconceived design of action. When drawing what I see I am usually most conscious of the underlying principle of abstract form in human beings and their relationship one to the other. In making my abstract drawings I am most often aware of those human values which dominate the structure and meaning of abstract forms.
Sculpture is the fusion of these two attitudes and I like to be free as to the degree of abstraction and realism in carving. The dominant feeling will always be the love of humanity and nature; and the love of sculpture for itself.
* source of Hepworth’s artist quote on the abstract aspects of her sculpture art, related to realism and the facts of nature; in; “Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography”, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1970, p. 285.
– Working in the abstract way seems to release one’s personality and sharpen the perceptions so that in the observation of humanity or landscape it is the wholeness of inner intention which moves one so profoundly. The components fall into place and one is no longer aware of the detail except as the necessary significance of wholeness and unity… …a rhythm of form which has its roots in earth but reaches outwards towards the unknown experiences of the future. The thought underlying this form is, for me, the delicate balance the spirit of man maintains between his knowledge and the laws of the universe.
* Hepworth’s artist quote on the delicate balance between his knowledge and the laws of the universe in her abstract sculpture art, in; “Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography”, New York, Praeger Publishers, 1970, p. 286.
– I loved the family and everything to do with them. I loved the environment and the cooking. I used to cook and go in my studio. I had to have methods of working. If I was in the middle of a work and the oven burned or the children called for me, I used to make an arrangement with music, records, or poetry, so that when I went back to the studio, I picked up where I left off. I enjoyed it, you see; it was part of me.
* Barbara Hepworth, with a quote on her private and family life, related to her artistic work; in “Art Talk, conversations with 15 woman artists”, Cindy Nemser 1975, Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 1995, p. 14.
– I have to dedicate myself. Do you understand? I don’t feel conflict in myself because if I do, my work doesn’t go well. If there’s conflict I have to sit down or go to sleep to solve it. And the only way to solve the problem is to produce really affirmative work which can only come – I can’t make it come. I can’t conjure it up. I can only go to sleep and hope it happens… …You have to digest it and if you digest you can contribute.
* her quote on her attitude in creating or not; from “Art Talk, conversations with 15 woman artists”, Cindy Nemser 1975, Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 1995, p. 15.
– At no point do I wish to be in conflict with any man or masculine thought. It doesn’t enter my consciousness. I think art is anonymous. It’s not competitive with men. It’s a complementary contribution. I’ve said that and I do believe it, that one does contribute to art and that’s nothing to do with being male or female… …I don’t think a good work of art can just be said to be feminine or masculine… art’s either good or isn’t.
* quote of Barbara Hepworth in which she refuses the feminine aspect of being an artist; taken from “Art Talk, conversations with 15 woman artists”, Cindy Nemser 1975, Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 1995, pp. 15-16.
– I’ve found opposition to my teaching because I said it’s not the strength which does it, it’s a rhythm. You don’t need huge muscles great strength. In fact, if you have that and misuse it, you’re going to damage the material. It’s absurd. It’s a rhythmical flow of an idea, whichever sex you are.
* artist quote on her physical condition, to be able to carve; from “Art Talk, conversations with 15 woman artists”, Cindy Nemser 1975, Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 1995, p. 16.
– It’s (the magazine the ‘Circle’, fh) been reprinted and it’s now referred to as classic. Well it is. But Ben Nicholson, Sir Leslie Martin, Gabo and Leslie Martin’s wife, Sadie Speaight, and I did that. We were sitting round the fire and we said, ‘Why shouldn’t we do a book?’ And so we started and now it’s a classic and referred to as such.
* quote on a collective publication of the group connected sculpture artists; in “Art Talk, conversations with 15 woman artists”, Cindy Nemser 1975, Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 1995, p. 17.
– There is an oval sculpture of 1943. I was in despair because my youngest daughter, one of the triplets, had osteomyelitis. In those days the war was on and you couldn’t get anything. She was ill for four years. I thought the only thing I can do to help this awful situation, because we never knew if it would worsen, is to make some beautiful object. Something as clean as I can make it as a kind of present for her. It’s happened again and again. When my son died, he was killed (in the war, fh), it’s the only way I can go on.
* quote of Barbara Hepworth, illustrating the narrow relation between her sculpture art and her family life during the war years; in “Art Talk, conversations with 15 woman artists”, Cindy Nemser 1975, Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 1995, p. 19.
– You can’t make a sculpture, in my opinion, without involving your body. You move and you feel and you breathe and you touch. The spectator is the same. His body is involved too. If it’s a sculpture he has to first of all sense gravity. He’s got two feet. Then he must walk and move and use his eyes and this is a great involvement. Then if a form goes in like that – what are those holes for? One is physically involved and this is sculpture. It’s not architecture. It’s rhythm and dance and everything. It’s do with swimming and movement and air and sea and all our well-being… …Sculpture is involved in the body living in the spirit or the spirit living in the body, whichever way you like to put it.
* Barbara Hepworth’s quote on the connection between the body and creation of sculpture, related to the act of swimming or dancing, in her experience; from “Art Talk, conversations with 15 woman artists”, Cindy Nemser 1975, Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 1995, p. 21.
– I think all these new sculptors (after World War 2, fh) – he (= Anthony Caro, fh) is not all that young though – are taking stand against abominable architecture since the war and I think rightly so. But again I feel it’s not enough to be against something. You have to do something that will damn well replace it. Where do you put these sculptures?… …I like to think that time is timeless and I wouldn’t want to make a work which wouldn’t last for more than ten years – nor a work that wouldn’t go anywhere. It would make me terrible mad. Mind you, I have to wait to find for my work. It doesn’t happen all that easily, but it does happen. It slips in somewhere. Before the war the architects were very much one with the sculptors, painters, everybody. We thought alike. Then the war was over… … the architects gave up coming to look at sculpture and painting.
* sculptor quote by Barbara Hepworth, on the relation between architecture and sculpture art, in the period before the war; in “Art Talk, conversations with 15 woman artists”, Cindy Nemser 1975, Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 1995, p. 22.
– I’m involved in everything. I read just as I was in the thirties during the Spanish War and Franco and everything. And after all there’s not a great deal of difference between the ‘Monument to the Spanish War’, a group of things one on top of the other, that I lost and ‘The family of Man’ (1970, fh). I mean I’ve always been involved. I was involved in industry in my home town. I was involved in the distress and the strikes. I wasn’t marching but I was involved through my work.
* quote by Barbara Hepworth on her involvement with society and life; from “Art Talk, conversations with 15 woman artists”, Cindy Nemser 1975, Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 1995, p. 23.
– One of the mysteries is how the human mind can hear a piece of music, a symphony from the beginning to the end, before beginning; or see a sculpture finished all the way round, when it doesn’t exist. Now these faculties are the sort faculties which are needed in sciences, math, and medicine and all kind of things. But if one has them, one has to learn to use them… …You can’t start with a block and say: Now it’s going to dictate me’. You (as an artist, fh) dictate to it.
* her artist quote on the choice of dictating art or being dictated, as an creating artists, from “Art Talk, conversations with 15 woman artists”, Cindy Nemser 1975, Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 1995, pp. 24-25.
not sourced quotes by the English woman artist Barbara Hepworth; abstract sculpture
– I’m not afraid, you see. I know how to carve. No credit to me. I was just born like that. (artist quote, Barbara Hepworth).
– My left hand is my thinking hand. The right is only a motor hand. This holds the hammer. The left hand, the thinking hand, must be relaxed, sensitive. The rhythms of thought pass through the fingers and grip of this hand into the stone. It is also a listening hand. It listens for basic weaknesses of flaws in the stone; for the possibility or imminence of fractures. (artist quote on her both hands by Hepworth)
art links for more biography information on English woman sculptor Barbara Hepworth
* biography facts about woman sculptor Barbara Hepworth, on Wikipedia
* selection of pictures of Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture art works
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