Dame Barbara Hepworth

Marjorie Parr Gallery, St Ives, where acquired by the family of the present owner in June 1971

London, Gimpel Fils, Recent Works by Barbara Hepworth, June 1958, un-numbered exhibition;
São Paulo, Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, V. Biennial of the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo, September - December 1959, cat. no.8, with tour to Comisión National de Bellas Artes, Montevideo; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires; Instituto de Arte Moderno, Santiago and Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas;
Recent British Sculpture, British Council Travelling Exhibition, 1961-3, un-numbered exhibition (details untraced);
Otterlo, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Barbara Hepworth, May - July 1965, cat. no.58, with tour to Basle, Turin, Karlsruhe and Essen;
St Ives, The Guildhall, St Ives Freedom Exhibition, September - October 1968, un-numbered exhibition;
St Ives, Penwith Gallery, Penwith Society of Arts Spring Exhibition, 27th February - 15th May 1969, un-numbered exhibition.

The board appears sound. There are some very minor frame abrasions at the extreme edges of the board. There are a few specks of loss to the upper left quadrant. There is one very fine diagonal scratch, 10 cm from the bottom, only visible upon very close inspection. Subject to the above the work is in overall very good condition. Inspection under ultra violet light reveals no obvious signs of restoration or fluorescence. Please telephone the department on +44 0207 293 6424 if you have any further questions regarding the present lot.
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We are grateful to Dr Sophie Bowness for her kind assistance with the cataloguing apparatus for the present work.

The present painting shares its form with a bronze sculpture, which was also executed in 1958. Both works bear the overtly religious name Cantate Domino, meaning 'O Sing unto the Lord', which is the opening phrase of Psalm 98. This spiritual association fits with a wider pattern in Barbara Hepworth's work in the 1950s. This was a troubled time for the Artist. The horrors of the Second World War were not long past and the threat of the Cold War loomed large. Her son Paul Skeaping died in 1953 and her separation from Ben Nicholson was made definitive by his marriage to Felicitas Vogler in 1957. In response to these public and personal difficulties, she made a series of rising form sculptures as monuments to faith and hope.

The present painting has a tremendous sense of lift. It consists of two diamond shapes stacked one upon the other. The lower diamond is bulky and compressed, while the upper form is lighter and elongated, rising and opening to sharp points. Several commentators have remarked on the thrust of the composition. Michael Shepherd wrote of the sculpture that: ‘the resilience of the metal, and the organic spring which recalls the uncurling tendrils from a seed, unite with the upwards stretch like that of upstretched open hands. Thus a multiplicity of references from figurative associations, together with the work's own essential and abstract nature, come together to form an independent spiritual unity’ (Michael Shepherd, Barbara Hepworth, Methuen, London, 1963, p.39). This figurative interpretation was also taken up by Edwin Mullins. He notes that Cantate Domino is ‘even more exultant’ than Ascending Form, (Gloria), adding that it represents ‘a free stylisation of the human hand raised in supplication and praise’ (Edwin Mullins, 'Barbara Hepworth', Barbara Hepworth Exhibition 1970, (exh. cat.), Hakone Open-Air Museum, Japan, 1970, unpaginated). In this way the reflected forms may evoke hands in prayer, such as those in Albrecht Dürer's famous Study of Hands, 1508 (Albertina, Vienna), or wings preparing for flight.   

Although Hepworth herself did not specify such a literal interpretation, Mullins's assessment does reflect her general view of the spirituality of her work in general. Hepworth wrote: 'My sculpture has often seemed to me like offering a prayer at moments of great unhappiness. When there has been a threat to life - like the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, or now the menace of pollution - my reaction has been to swallow despair, to make something that rises up, something that will win. In another age ... I would simply have carved cathedrals.' (Barbara Hepworth quoted in ibid., unpaginated).

Soon after completion, the bronze Cantate Domino was exhibited in the 'Altar Furniture and Religious Sculpture' section of British Artist Craftsmen. Hepworth told Norman Reid, she intended Cantate Domino for her grave but local by-laws ensured that 'it was pointedly refused on account of it being too high' (27th November 1967, Tate Gallery Acquisitions files). Instead the Artist's cast passed to the Tate and her grave is marked with a simple stone and a cast of Ascending Form (Gloria) is now placed at the entrance to Longstone Cemetery, Carbis Bay.