Tomorrow is the birthday of British sculptress Dame Barbara Hepworth b.1903 – 1975 – I shouldn’t really call Hepworth a sculptress – as she believed in equality of the sexes, especially in the arts. I am putting this post on today because it’s a week since I posted – and I don’t want to get into bad habits already. As well as having a horrific flu virus which I’m still trying to shake off, I have been busy planning a very loosely based itinerary of the way the posts shall go and that in itself has taken some time. Of course, whether I stick strictly to this shall have to be seen…… watch this space (there might even be something in it from time to time). Now, that is just a joke 😀 Just call it flu delirium 🙂
Barbara Hepworth is very famous for piercing her sculptures. She pierced her first form in 1931, the year she gave birth to her first child, ( though Henry Moore got all the credit for being the first to pierce the form in 1932.) Another characteristic of Hepworth’s work are strings or wires which are stretched over the pierced part of the form. I have written quite a bit about Hepworth over the past couple of years:-
Happy Birthday Barbara Hepworth!
A Cornish garden of hidden delights – the Barbara Hepworth Museum Cornwall
To celebrate her birthday this year I am running another poetry competition over on Bookstains. Just click the image below for details of how to enter this unusual challenge 🙂
original image from here Adam Woolfitt here, others from here and here
Echostains Blog 
You are brave to post during your delirium! When I’ve tried to make art whilst (a word I borrowed from you!) under the weather, the results have been interesting, but not always satisfactory. Thanks for reminding me of Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures and her contributions to Modernism. Get well soon.
Aw thanks Al! everyone I know seems to have this awful virus at the moment. But on with the motley – so they say. I have lots of stuff lined up for this year including a blog facelift 🙂
I am especially drawn to the sculptures in the garden shot, above. I noticed how modern her works look and have always thought that sculptures like this look so cold in a museum setting. But! Wow! How gorgeous surrounded by nature! Thank-you for opening my eyes!
Great! the last two pics are what we took when we went to her museum in St Ives in Cornwall – I think there’s some others on the other two links. It was great to see these in a natural setting – I felt that I understood what she was trying to do better. looking through the piercings reveal beautiful aspects – like ripples going on and on 🙂
we even took a pic of her studio and her little coat and overall was still hung up! She was a tiny little woman full of talent and feeling, I believe she died in a fire or after being in a fire. Sad.
Get well!
Oh I have had more than enough of Henry Moore over the years—everywhere at the Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City. There are moments when his work engages me–but more often it leaves me ‘cold’ and indifferent. Most effective outside when the sunlight hits certain curves just right. Otherwise it prompts me to ask “So why didn’t you take this further?” Maybe that’s just the result of my own affinty for details.
Piercing—hmm–never thought of it in relation to sculptures before–usually I associate it with noses, navels and …….
ooooooooo
Hot toddies for Lynda, asap! Keep ’em coming until she dreams herself healthy and hale!
I’m getting there 47whitebuffalo 🙂
Couldn’t agree more about Moore, I prefer Hepworth who I feel is more in sympathy with the natural environment. it’s hard to image this tiny woman working on these big scultures, but her garden in St Ives is an absolute delight to wander in and more or less just stumble across these sculptures. Her studio is so pristine like its just been tidied, you get the feeling that she’s just stepped out from it into her garden 🙂
Pierced sculptures.
An intriguing idea.
Thee certainly look interesting in these pictures.
If i’m ever down that way i might just pop in and take a look
I do hope you do – you won’t regret it1 There’s a very different type of Tate gallery there to- well worth checking out 🙂
Fascinating post, Lynda. Can’t say blocks of stones with holes in really do it for me but…think I prefer beautiful sculptures from Ancient Greece and Rome. I will have a go at a poem today or tomorrow. Hope you are feeling better!
To each his own I see beauty in both 🙂 If this sculpture doesn’t inspire you there are plenty of others
http://tinyurl.com/5svzx95
Hope you come up with something Jessica, – I think mine will be pretty abstract lol
ps I am feeling a bit better, thanks 🙂
Nice piece…
Would you like to read mine of Henry Moore?
Mother and Child 1953…
http://johnathanenglish.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/henry-moore-mother-and-child-1953/
Keep writing!!
Johnathan.
Thanks Johnathan! I’ve just read it. I think you’re right about the percieved ‘strangling’, – that’s what I see too. I first I thought about killing what you love – then about the Greek God Cronus/Kronus who devoured his children1 Thanks for visiting – appreciated 🙂
My mother loved Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture, so I’m familiar with her work. Haven’t seen it in ages, though, so thanks for the reminder!
Get well soon. Hugs.
Thanks Val 🙂 Hepworth is one of my favorite sculptors 🙂