Description

'Conoid, Sphere and Hollow II' was made three years after the birth of Hepworth's triplets in 1934. Much of her sculpture of this period consisted of three forms, which encouraged exploration of spatial relationships, tension and scale between objects. At this time she was interested in the ways that dynamics established between forms could symbolise those of human relationships. The smooth polished marble of this work recalls the sculpture of Constantin Brancusi, who Hepworth first met in Paris in 1933.

Barbara Hepworth was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire and studied at Leeds School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. A scholarship in Rome in the mid 1920s provided an opportunity for her to learn traditional marble carving techniques. From 1932 she met many leading French avant-garde artists, accompanied by Ben Nicholson, the British artist who she later married. In 1933 both joined Abstraction-Création, an international exhibiting society based in Paris. As the style of her work developed increasingly towards abstraction, she, Nicholson, and other artists including Henry Moore and Paul Nash were instrumental in progressing the modern movement in England. With the outbreak of war, Hepworth and Nicholson moved to Cornwall, where she remained until her sudden death in 1975. After the dissolution of their marriage in 1951, Hepworth lived permanently at Trewyn Studios in St Ives.

In 2003 the centenary of her birth was marked by several celebratory exhibitions, notably in Wakefield, the city of her birth, and at St Ives.