Dame Barbara Hepworth

Lefevre Gallery (Alex Reid & Lefevre), London
Mr & Mrs S. Kaye, Cookham, Berkshire (acquired from the above in October 1946)
Gimpels Fils, London
McCrory Corporation, New York
Private Collection, Los Angeles (acquired from the above)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

London, Lefevre Gallery (Alex Reid & Lefevre), Barbara Hepworth, 1946, no. 20
Wakefield, Wakefield City Art Gallery; York, York City Art Gallery & Manchester, Manchester City Art Gallery, Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture and Drawings, 1951, no. 23
London, Gimpel Fils, Collector's Choice XIV, 1967, no. 24, illustrated in the catalogue
Buffalo, Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Minneapolis, Institute of Arts & San Francisco, Museum of Modern Art, Modern European Sculpture, 1918-1945: Unknown Beings and Other Realities, 1979

E. H. Ramsden, 'The Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth' in Polemic, no. 5, London, September-October 1946, illustrated pl. b
Barbara Hepworth, 'Approach to Sculpture', in Studio, vol. 132, no. 643, October 1946, illustrated p. 97
Herbert Read, Barbara Hepworth, Carvings and Drawings, London, 1952, nos. 77a & 77b, illustrated
Abraham Marie Hammacher, 'Barbara Hepworth', in Modern Sculptors Series, London, 1958, illustrated pl. 6
Josef Paul Hodin, Barbara Hepworth, Neuchâtel, 1961, no. 131, illustrated
Barbara Hepworth, Barbara Hepworth: A Pictorial Autobiography, Bath, 1970, illustrated p. 48
Penelope Curtis, Barbara Hepworth, London, 1998, illustrated p. 72
Christ Stephens (ed.), Barbara Hepworth: Centenary, London, 2003, illustrated p. 30 

The base has some minor handling marks. Apart from a nailhead-sized dent towards the top with an associated spot of paint loss (partially visible in the catalogue illustration), a hairline craquelure in the white pigment, and a light liquid stain at the back, this work is in good condition.
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Elegy is an outstanding example of the aesthetic beauty achieved in Hepworth's sculpture through absolute simplicity of form and material. Its intimate scale and sensuous finish owe much to the technique of 'direct carving', upheld by Modernist sculptors as the most honest, unmitigated form of expression available. Created from a single wooden block using only simple manual tools, the sinuous organic form reveals both the primacy of the artist and the agency of the natural forces that govern the material. Such avant-garde ideals embodied by Elegy find resonance in the work of Hepworth's Modernist contemporaries, particularly Constantin Brancusi in Paris and Henry Moore in Britain.

In an interview in 1970, Hepworth expressed her belief that 'carving is close to writing music – in so far as the composer takes in his whole work from beginning to end before he begins to write it down' (Barbara Hepworth in conversation with Alan Bowness on 14th April, 2nd & 4th September 1970). Indeed, Hepworth often conceived of her sculpture in terms of musical analogies, as evident in the title of the present work. 'Elegy', meaning a song of melancholy or lament, might suggest that the sculpture is an intensely personal response to events on a public and political level.

Conceived at the end of World War II, Elegy is like a memorial to the devastation seen in the preceding six years of global unrest. The formal aspects of Elegy take on a new meaning in this context. Its elliptical shape suggests ideas of continuation and growth – a positive message for humanity at a time of recovery. The natural landscape experienced by Hepworth is more than a source of inspiration, it represents an ideal of stability to which everyone can relate.

In practical terms, the constraints of the Second World War dictated that Hepworth often worked on a relatively small scale. The result in this case, however, is an encompassing work of powerful formal integrity, which plays with the contrast between light and shadow, space and matter, interior and exterior.

Fig. 1, Barbara Hepworth carving Pendour in 1947