- 201
Dame Barbara Hepworth
Description
- Barbara Hepworth
- MAQUETTE FOR WINGED FIGURE
- brass and metal string on concrete base
- height (including base): 61cm., 24in.
Provenance
Acquired from the above by the family of the present owner in 1967
Literature
Penelope Curtis & Alan G. Wilkinson, Barbara Hepworth: A Retrospective (exhibition catalogue), Tate Gallery, Liverpool, 1994, p. 138, no. 55, illustration of another cast
Alan Bowness (ed.), The Complete Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960-69, London, 1971, p. 45, no. 450, illustration of another cast in aluminium
Catalogue Note
Executed in 1957 the present work belongs to the first of the two editions of maquettes for the larger sculpture of the same title of 1962. John Lewis Partnership, London commissioned the artist to create a sculpture for the south-east wall of their flagship store on Oxford Street, London. Winged Figure was unveiled on 23rd April 1963.
'The re-building of the John Lewis building in Oxford Street began in 1956, and the Partnership first talked to Epstein about the provision of a sculpture on the new building’s south-west corner. Six artists were then invited to contribute designs for a project, but no one was chosen. Finally in May 1961 Hepworth was asked to enlarge her 1957 ‘Winged Figure’. At its inauguration in April 1963 Hepworth spoke of this piece as ‘a project I have long wished to fulfil and this site with its wonderful oblique wall was quite perfect’. In addition to R.H. Uren, the architect of the building, four other advisers were particularly involved: Hugh Casson, Robin Darwin, J.M. Richards, and Gordon Russell' (The Gazette, 27 April 1963).