WORK OF THE WEEK : Barbara Hepworth, ‘Three Forms’, 1970
Barbara Hepworth
Three Forms, 1970
Bronze
Based on the lignum vitae carving of 1968 (BH 472)
68 x 68 x 32 cm / 2ft 2 ¾ x 2ft 2 ¾ x 1ft ⅝ in.
6.2 x 68 x 32 cm (base) / 2 ½ x 2ft 2 ¾ x 1ft ⅝ in. (base)
Cast 7 of 9 plus 1 AP
Barbara Hepworth's Three Forms is an exceptional example of her later work and exemplifies the period in her life when she was experimenting with casting in bronze.
Three Forms retains the rendering of simple shapes that characterises all of Hepworth's sculpture and reflects her longstanding interest in how the standing forms and the space between these forms might help us reflect on our own relationships- to each other and to the land.
Three Forms is also reminiscent of arrangements of pagan stone circles, sites that Hepworth was known to be interested in. There is a particular similarity between the standing figures in Three Forms and the standing forms that make up Stonehenge. This analogy conjures up not just an image of the stone structures and their composition but also how these imposing forms simultaneously dominate and yet feel entirely at home in the landscape.
Three Forms could be contextualised as a return to Hepworth's earlier inspirations, and the birth of her triplets over thirty years prior.
‘From 1965 to 1975, the last decade of her career, Barbara Hepworth continued to explore her three basic forms – the standing form, two forms, and the closed form. But in a number of carvings and bronzes she moved on, found new and unexpected sources of inspiration, and created a group of works which, in their scale and complexity, constitute a genuine late style. As Alan Bowness has remarked, in discussing the greatness of the late style of a number of artists, including Henry Moore: “The late work is invariably more private, more centred on the artist’s own obsessions, often reverting to much earlier moments of his artistic career or life”.’
- Alan G. Wilkinson, Barbara Hepworth: Sculptures from the Estate, Wildenstein: New York, p.30
