Barbara Hepworth

Gimpel Fils, London
Thomas Baker Slick Jr. (acquired in June 1959) 
Thence by descent to the present owner 

San Antonio, The McNay Art Museum, Tom Slick, International Art Collector, 2009, n.n., illustrated in the catalogue

Recent Works by Barbara Hepworth (exhibition catalogue), Gimpel Fils, London, 1956, no. 11, illustration of version 1
'New Work in a New Material,' Yorkshire Evening Post, 3rd December 1956, illustration of version 1 (titled as Forms in Movement-Pavan)
Exhibition on the Occasion of the Conferment of the Honorary Freedom of the Borough of St Ives on Bernard Leach and Barbara Hepworth (exhibition catalogue), Public Library, St. Ives, 1968, illustration of version 1
Josef Paul Hodin, Barbara Hepworth, Neuchâtel & London, 1961, no. 210, illustrated p. 169 (version 1 illustrated, pl. 210)
Matthew Gale & Chris Stephens, Barbara Hepworth, Works in the Tate Gallery Collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum St Ives, London, 1999, colour illustration of another version p. 154
Barbara Hepworth (exhibition catalogue), Institut Valencià d'Art Moderne, Valencia, 2004, colour illustration of version 1 pp. 170-171
Sophie Bowness (ed.), Barbara Hepworth, The Plasters, The Gift to Wakefield, Farnham, 2011, illlustrated in colour pp. 110-111 (version 1 illustrated p. 111, fig. 12)

Tessa Jackson of Jackson Sculpture Conservation Ltd. has very kindly prepared an extensive condition report for the present work. Please contact the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6130 in order to obtain a copy.
"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."

`My approach to bronze isn’t a modeller’s approach. I like to create the armature of a bronze as if I’m building a boat, and then putting plaster on is like covering the bones with skin and muscles. But I build it up so that I can cut it. I like to carve the hard plaster surface’ (Hepworth in conversation with Alan Bowness, quoted in Alan Bowness (ed.), The Complete Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth, London, 1971, p. 7).   

Curved Forms (Pavan) was created during a year which saw a major development in Hepworth’s working practice.  Hepworth was above all a carver: she disliked modelling and so she had been hesitant about the use of traditional bronze techniques.  At first she dismissed bronze as a medium, but in 1956 she devised a method by which she could both carve and cast by building up plaster on carefully constructed mesh aluminium armatures.  

Curved Forms (Pavan) is an early example of this use of plaster. Sophie Bowness points to the importance of Hepworth’s plaster works: `... they [plasters] are the first stage of the creative process and the closest to the hand of the sculptor’ (Sophie Bowness, Barbara Hepworth: The Plasters: The Gift to Wakefield, Lund Humphries, London, 2011, p.33). Although Hepworth occasionally exhibited her plasters, she rarely sold them. Curved Forms (Pavan) is one of two unique plaster variants. The first version was gifted in 1956 to the Wakefield Collection, whilst the present work (known as version 2) has been in a private collection since it was bought from Gimpel Fils shortly after its creation. The work was not cast, but a bronze edition was made in 1967 from a related concrete work, Forms in Movement (Pavan) (BH453), a cast of which is on view at The Hepworth Museum, St Ives.