BARBARA HEPWORTH: signed prints from the 1970s
This 'Spotlight' feature on rare 1970s signed lithographic prints by the doyenne of British sculpture, Barbara Hepworth, complements the current ‘Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life’ exhibition at nearby Tate St Ives.
As one of the leading British artists of her generation, Barbara Hepworth was the first woman sculptor to achieve international recognition. From 1939 she was based in St Ives, where, along with Naum Gabo, Ben Nicholson, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Peter Lanyon, and Patrick Heron, she was implementable in driving the international recognition of the ‘St Ives School’.
The natural landscape surrounding St Ives was to greatly inspire Hepworth’s work, in her graduation from a traditional figurative and naturalistic approach, to pioneering new practice and techniques in her creation of simplified, and often pierced, abstract forms.
The prints on show can be seen as a complementary practice to Hepworth’s direct-carving process: trial compositions striving for balanced and harmonious relationships – be it the human figure and the landscape, or between contrasting forms or textures placed side-by-side.
