As The Courtauld Gallery opens The Joseph Hage Aaronson & Bremen Exhibition: Hepworth in Colour this summer, London is looking again at Dame Barbara Hepworth, not only as one of Britain’s great modernist abstract sculptors, but as a woman who carved out a life of courage, independence and radical self-determination. She entered a world where our grandmothers’ and great-grandmothers’ only respectable route into adulthood was to get married and have children, Hepworth gained an education, a career and a reputation that continued to grow long after her tragic death in 1975, aged 73.
Born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, in 1903, Hepworth was the daughter of a civil engineer who occasionally took her with him when inspecting roads and bridges. In the eponymous 1961 BBC film directed by John Read, she talked about the lasting impact of these journeys, stating: “The West Riding landscape… the hills were my sculptures; the roads defined the forms.”
The headmistress at Wakefield Girls’ High School recognised her talent and encouraged her to apply for a scholarship at Leeds School of Art. Hepworth later said: “Perhaps what one wants to say is formed in childhood and the rest of one’s life is spent trying to say it.” She grew to believe that sculpture “should and could embody the rhythms of life itself”.
A charismatic woman, capable of forming lifelong friendships, including one with Henry Moore, she became part of the European avant-garde set of the 1930s, based in Hampstead, London. Here, her abstract sculptures began to push the boundaries of the modern British movement and, by the time she was 30, she had married, become a mother to a son and divorced the artist John Skeaping. She went on to have triplets with painter Ben Nicholson in 1934, and wed him in 1938.
Left: Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975), Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red, 1943. Wakefield Permanent Art Collection.
Right: Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975), Drawing for Sculpture with Colour (Forms with Red and Blue), 1941. Private Collection. © Bowness.
A year later, as war loomed, the family was invited to Carbis Bay, St Ives, by art critic Adrian Stokes and his then-wife, artist Margaret Mellis. They relocated five days before the declaration of war, with Hepworth taking a single sculpture and a handful of tools with her. Cornwall, with its rugged landscapes, endless skies, beautiful bays and temperate climate, soon became home, providing her with inspiration until her death in a studio fire.
By day, she dedicated herself to raising four children. By night, she produced an extraordinary portfolio of drawings, which she described as “sculptures in disguise”. War-time rations meant materials were scarce, and working within a small studio forced Hepworth to create smaller sculptures, often from plaster, which she sold to support her family.
That genius is now lauded worldwide. The Hepworth Wakefield, named in her honour, celebrates her artistic legacy and houses a nationally important collection of 20th-century British art. Its latest acquisition, Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red (1943), was bought by a private collector shortly after it was created and remained hidden from public view for nearly 80 years. Faced with the possibility of it being lost to the nation once more, The Hepworth Wakefield and Art Fund raised the £3.8m asking price.
The sculpture dances with moving shadows; its pale blue pigment, inspired by Cornish skies and sea, contrasts with Hepworth’s signature red string, which she said represented “the tension I felt between myself and the sea, the wind or hill”.
“Hepworth – Rhythm and Form” art trail by 45 Park Lane takes guests to sites such as Kenwood House (left), to admire Hepworth’s Monolith (Empyrean), the nine-foot-tall memorial to her son, Paul Skeaping, who was killed while serving in the RAF in 1953 and to
John Lewis (right) to view her iconic Winged Figure (1961-2).
Hepworth had been interested in colour since the mid-1930s, but Cornwall pushed her work in a new direction and deepened that fascination. She worked in layers, exploring the patination and colouration of bronze and plaster, carefully selecting colours to suit particular pieces. This passion sits at the heart of Hepworth in Colour at The Courtauld Gallery, the first exhibition to explore this facet of her work in depth.
Bringing together 20 sculptures and 30 drawings and paintings, the Courtauld show highlights early war years pieces sold to private collectors, as well as works from the 1950s and 1960s that reveal how colour continued to occupy Hepworth in new ways, including through patinated bronzes and painted marbles.
Alongside Hepworth in Colour, The Courtauld Gallery is also showing Hepworth and Nicholson: The Hampstead Studio Photographs, an edit of rare images of the couple’s shared workspace at No. 7 Mall Studios in Hampstead. Taken in 1933 by Paul Laib, they are among the most evocative studio photographs to emerge in Britain and show the interrelation of the artists’ practices at the time.
Meanwhile, another London landmark of modernism, 45 Park Lane, originally designed by the renowned Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius – a good friend of Hepworth – and part of the Dorchester Collection, is also paying homage to her genius this year, with the “Hepworth – Rhythm and Form” art trail). In this tour, guests explore sites associated with the radical British sculptor across London, including Kenwood House, where the Hepworth sculpture Monolith (Empyrean) is located; her home and studio in Hampstead; the Isokon building, considered the Hampstead Modernists’ headquarters; and John Lewis on Oxford Street to view Hepworth’s iconic Winged Figure.
Here, a celebratory guide brings her extraordinary life into sharp focus, with anecdotes revealing how Hepworth’s life intertwined with some of the liveliest minds of the 20th century, including Piet Mondrian, Roland Penrose and Lee Miller. London is alive with Hepworth this summer, finally bringing her vision “to infuse art with life and life with art” to the fore.
Hepworth in Colour
The Courtauld Gallery, London
12 June – 6 September 2026
More information and tickets, HERE.
Author: Rebecca Dickson
This is a reduced version of the longer, more in-depth feature about Barbara Hepworth appearing in our summer issue, on sale 17 June. Reserve your copy, HERE.
Other exhibitions in London this summer recommended by I-M Inquisitive Minds include Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait, at the National Portrait Gallery; Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A South Kensington; and Winston Churchill: The Painter at The Wallace Collection
Lead image: Barbara Hepworth. © Alamy.
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