Barbara Hepworth
Put the hole through the middle of the sculpture, and made St Ives a centre of European modernism.
Barbara Hepworth was born in Wakefield in 1903, studied at Leeds alongside Henry Moore and then at the Royal College, and in 1931 pierced a sculpture straight through — a hole that opened up the form and became one of the defining moves of twentieth-century sculpture. She moved to St Ives at the outbreak of war with Ben Nicholson and their triplets, and stayed for the rest of her life, working in wood, stone and, from the mid-1950s, bronze. Single Form stands outside the United Nations in New York. She died in a fire at her studio in 1975.
The direct carvings in wood and stone are unique and are the top of the market by a wide margin; the bronzes are editioned, typically in sevens or nines, and cast number, foundry, lifetime versus posthumous casting and the condition of the patina are the substance of a valuation. Many bronzes are painted or have strung interiors, and replaced strings are common and should be disclosed. The Hepworth estate and the catalogue raisonne are the references. Drawings, particularly the hospital operating-theatre series of the late 1940s, are a distinct and strong market.
If you own a work by Barbara Hepworth
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Write to info@whitebankfineart.co.uk, or start below.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.