Barbara Hepworth
Although known primarily as a sculptor, Hepworth also produced an exceptional body of works on paper. Her work as a printmaker evolved in tandem with her sculpture and drawings, opening up a rich avenue of expression in the artist’s later years. Her lithographs are highly sought-after and stand as some of her most beautiful works.
Hepworth came to printmaking relatively late in life, creating her first untitled lithograph in 1958. It was to be another ten years before she made another. In 1966 she received a letter from Herbert Simon, the manager of the Curwen Press, proposing that she produce a body of prints to allow ‘people of modest means to own something by Barbara Hepworth’. The idea appealed to her, and in 1968 the great lithographer Stanley Jones travelled to St Ives to work with the artist in her upper workshop at Trewyn Studio, staying for two weeks.
The result of this visit was Hepworth’s first series of prints, 12 Lithographs by Barbara Hepworth, published in 1969. With their strong geometric elements and intersecting lines, these works were explicitly connected to the abstract forms that had defined the artist’s sculptural work in the 1930s and to which her attention had returned during the 60s. From the start, her work as a printmaker was inextricably linked with her iconic output as a sculptor. Hepworth once referred to her drawings as “sculptures born in the guise of two dimensions”, and this is also true of her prints.
The culmination of Hepworth’s graphic work was to come in 1971 with the publication of the Aegean Suite. Once again, Stanley Jones had travelled to Cornwall to work with Hepworth at Trewyn Studio. The nine works included in this portfolio constitute a joyous celebration of the Greek world, with titles referring to specific places within the Ancient myths and sensuous evocations of the light and texture of the landscape. These works are held in numerous museum collections the world over.
Hepworth continued to produce individual lithographs and screenprints during her later years. These pieces express beautifully the artist’s fascination with celestial forms and ‘magic’ stones.
Hepworth’s prints offer collectors the opportunity to acquire works with all the integrity and beauty of her sculptures but in two dimensions. Relatively uncommon within her oeuvre, they are rare objects that deserve a place in any survey of British modernism.
