Dame Barbara Hepworth

Gimpel Fils, London, where acquired by the family of the present owner, June 1968

Alan Bowness, The Complete Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960-1969, Lund Humphries, London, 1971, cat. no.436, pp.44-5, illustrated (another cast).

The work has been recently treated by Plowden & Smith Ltd, 190 St Ann's Hill, London, SW18 2RT who have prepared the following report: The two bronze elements were removed from the base. The aged lacquer was stripped from the piece using chemicals, the bronze forms were polished to remove small scuffs and scratches using a file and fine abrasive paper. They were then patinated to give an aged appearance. The forms were waxed to protect the bronze. Please telephone the department on 0207 293 6424 if you have any questions about the present work.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Executed in the later years of Hepworth's life, Two Forms (January 1967) provides an important visual manifestation of many of the major themes that she had explored throughout her life. The interaction of upright forms was one that was particularly relevant in the works of her last years, culminating in the large groups, The Family of Man of 1970 (BH513) and Conversation with Magic Stones of 1973 (BH567), and the present sculpture perfectly typifies the concerns that she was exploring in these sculptures, primarily that of social interaction. Throughout her career, Hepworth had been grouping together forms into coherent and balanced compositions, but in the later sculptures the sense that these forms are in some way related to the totemic depiction of primitive figures grows much stronger. Indeed, Hepworth herself described the upright figures of Conversation with Magic Stones in terms of 'the majesty of totems', an epithet that could easily refer to the vertical elegance of the present work.

The piercing is a direct reference to another important strand of her sculptural language and to her seminal work Pierced Form 1932, now sadly lost. Whilst a number of European sculptors had introduced piercings into their work much earlier, notably Archipenko and Lipchitz, this had tended to be organic and related to the stylisation of their subject. Hepworth's use of a non-objective piercing of the form in 1932 appears to pre-date that of her contemporary and friend Henry Moore by somewhere approaching a year. Whilst such questions of dating are difficult to pin down, what is irrefutable is that Hepworth's introduction of this element greatly enriched the possibilities of abstract sculpture by abolishing the concept of a closed, and thus entire form, and brought the individual sculpture firmly into the environment within which it was placed. 

In the present work, the piercing also serves to create contrast between the solidity of the rounded forms and adds a delicacy and openess, as well as bringing shadow and contrast to the centre of the mass.

A slate carving, on which the present work is based, was exhibited at the Tate Gallery exhibition in 1968 (cat. no.173) and this pattern is repeated in other works of the same year, for example Three Forms (Tokio) and Two Forms (Orkney).

We are grateful to Dr Sophie Bowness for her kind assistance in cataloguing the present work.