Dame Barbara Hepworth

Alex Reid & Lefevre, London
Howard Samuel Esq, London and thence by descent to the previous owner
Their sale, Christie's London, 23rd October 1998, lot 31, where acquired by the present owner

London, Alex Reid & Lefevre, Barbara Hepworth, New Sculpture and Drawings, February 1950, cat. no.17, illustrated.

Barbara Hepworth, Barbara Hepworth, Carvings and Drawings, Lund Humphries, London 1952, no.130, illustrated.

Stable board. There are some very minor frame abrasions to the extreme edges, particularly noticeable towards the left of the bottom edge, only visible upon closer inspection outside of the frame. There is very minor surface dirt to the work, and further media marks which appear in keeping with the artist's technique. This excepting the work appears to be in excellent condition. Ultraviolet light reveals two very minor flecks of fluorescence to the extreme bottom edge, possibly in keeping with the aforementioned frame abrasion, again not immediately visible in the present frame. Housed behind glass in a thick rustically-painted frame. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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Look closely at this drawing - at the piece itself, not its reproduction - and you will immediately be struck by how the delicacy of line seems to contrast with the robust handling of the surface. For every swathe of beautifully fluid pencil there are flurries of strokes scored with a point into the chalky gesso. The thin films of colour, so simply smeared with perhaps a thumb to offer just a hint of colour, are balanced by the vigour of the rubbing back of the surface, in many places almost obliterating the drawn lines.

It is this apparent counterpoint of approaches that ensures that this drawing never descends into prettiness, rather it retains a clear and appreciative focus on the beauty of the sitter, her tumbling curls of hair, elegant hands and serene mien. In the same way that Hepworth’s carvings often echo natural forms whilst retaining the integrity of the material, her figurative drawings show us a form of reality that is both real yet ideal. The two views of the sitter seen here, caught, as she seems, deep in thought, far from the self-conscious pose of a portrait, appear by their likeness to tell us a great deal. We sense a grace and poise in this young girl, but in making such an assumption we are really responding to Hepworth’s distillation of the subject. Her images of girls, be they the full length nudes or closer studies, as here, are filled with an exploration not only of the forms, but also the spirit within.

For Hepworth the correlation of figure and landscape was important, and she frequently wrote of the connection when discussing her work, seeing the art of sculpture as the way in which the two could be brought together. However, the way in which she creates her drawings incorporates such a strong element of involvement in the actual making of the work as an object that it is carried as close to sculpture as a drawing can be. Working the physical surface, scraping it with colour and rubbing it back to leave just a ghost of the hue, building the forms and curves with a network of pencil lines, the image is built as one might build an armature. Attention to the way in which the light stays or flees over the subject, the weight of the material of her sleeve or the wave of her hair, these are essentially the concerns all artists address with their work. In a work such as Two Heads of Lisa (Mauve) we see just how successfully Hepworth was able to address these concerns across disciplines.