Barbara Hepworth

Acquired from the artist by the present owner in 1966

London, Gimpel Fils, Barbara Hepworth, 1966, no .13
New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, V Guggenheim International Exhibition, 1967
Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario; Ottawa, The National Gallery of Canada & Montreal, The Museum of Fine Arts, Barbara Hepworth, 1968
New York, Gimpel & Weitzenhoffer, Barbara Hepworth, 1969, no. 1, illustrated in the catalogue
London, Gimpel Fils, Barbara Hepworth, 50 Sculptures from 1935 to 1970, 1975, no. 46, illustrated in the catalogue
New York, Arnold Herstand Gallery, British Paintings and Sculptures, 1987
New York, Wildenstein, Barbara Hepworth, Sculptures from the Estate, 1996, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Salisbury, New Art Centre, Sculpture Park and Gallery, British Sculpture in the Fifties, 1999-2000
St. Ives, Tate Gallery & Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Barbara Hepworth Centenary Exhibition, 2003, no. 97, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Valencia, Institut Valencia d'Art Modern, Barbara Hepworth, 2004, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
London, Gimpel Fils, Continuity, 2009

Alan Bowness (ed.), The Complete Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960-69, London, 1971, no. 394, illustrated pl. 132
Barbara Hepworth. A Retrospective (exhibition catalogue), Tate Gallery, London, 1994, p. 133, illustrated in an installation photograph of the 1967 exhibition (see fig. 1)

Apart from a small scratch towards the top of the left monolith (visible in the illustration), and some further minor scattered nicks and surface scuffing, this work is in very good condition. The wooden base has some minor old surface scratches.
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Executed in 1965, Three Standing Forms is a beautiful and monumental example of Hepworth's mature sculpture. While using an entirely abstract pictorial language, it embodies a highly stylised, universal image of a human figure, and reflects the artist's fascination with the relationship between man and nature. Hepworth incorporates the concept of positive and negative space in her abstract forms, and weaves the surrounding space into her sculpture by piercing each standing form and allowing light and air to flow through the stone. The present work is a rare example of Hepworth's sculpture carved from a grey-speckled limestone known as Roman stone, as well as by its Italian name Bianco del Mare. The light tonality of this Mediterranean stone gives the sculpture its unique sense of elegance, while slight variations in tone between the three monoliths amplify the dynamic quality of the ensemble.  

 

Abstract and decidedly modern, Three Standing Forms possesses a distinct beauty and sense of timelessness in its solidity and curvilinear formation. In her aspiration towards universality, Hepworth embraced an abstract mode of expression, avoiding any narrative in her compositions. With its solid upright forms, the present work possesses a sense of timelessness and a static grandeur of totems. Towards the end of her career, Hepworth wrote about the meaning that she assigned to many of her sculptures: 'Working in the abstract way seems to realise 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 figure. 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' (B. Hepworth, Barbara Hepworth. A Pictorial Autobiography, Bath, 1970, p. 93).

 

As evidenced by Three Standing Forms, Hepworth drew her inspiration from a variety of aesthetic sources, including the monumental work of her contemporary Henry Moore, as well as the organic and elegant stone carvings of Brancusi and Arp. In the last decade of her life, however, her sculpture more consciously took on subjects that related to human history, culminating in her monumental series The Family of Man. The present sculpture, a grouping of three vertical figures on a human scale, is perhaps a more personal meditation on this subject. Hepworth was the mother of triplets, born while she was married to the painter Ben Nicholson in the 1930s. She credited the birth of the trio as triggering a creative unleashing in her own art, which culminated later in her career with works such as Three Standing Forms. As the artist herself admitted, there is a certain poignancy about her late sculpture, as they addressed topics of special significance to her in the last decade of her life.    

Fig. 1, The present work exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York in 1967