Barbara Hepworth

Charles Bronfman, New York

The stringed sculpture is in excellent condition. The copper sculpture is screwed securely on to its circular wood base. The copper form displays a mottled and slightly streaky patina that is a combination of brown, green and exposed copper. The amber colored string is taught and well secured to the copper. The string is new and was procured based on its match of color and gauge with the original string that had broken. No significant scratches or abrasions to the surface were evident on the sculpture. The white painted base is in very good condition. The paint appears deliberately stressed to give it a more weathered appearance. Small radial cracks can be seen on top of the wooden base as well as several small vertical cracks on the side. The cracks are stable and caused by dimensional changes in the wood. The sculpture is structurally sound. The above condition report has been provided by Jackie Wilson of Wilson Conservation, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Hepworth's group of Orpheus sculptures all have their genesis in the commission from the electronics firm Mullard Ltd. to produce a sculpture for their offices at Mullard House in Bloomsbury, London. The final work was over four feet tall and was followed by two smaller versions, Orpheus, maquette 1 and Orpheus, maquette 2; version 1, each subsequently produced as an edition of 8. A third version, Orpheus, maquette 2; version II was also produced in an edition of 3.

The present work belongs to a period during which Hepworth  experimented with a variety of materials for sculpture, including sheet metals, and in the Orpheus and related Curlew pieces, she combines a variety of sources and elements from her earlier works to produce sculptures that have not only grace and balance, but also a striking feel of modernity for the period. Henry Moore had used string in his sculptures from the late 1930's, and Hepworth had incorporated this into her work from at least 1940, such as Sculpture with Colour, 1940 (coll. Tate Gallery, London). The complexity of the strung elements in the Orpheus group, however, seem to relate much more closely to her drawings for sculpture of the same period. Relatively small in scale, these two-dimensional works seem to develop the idea of creating a three-dimensional space through the use of intersecting straight lines, and have much in common with the contemporary sculptures of Naum Gabo, who was then working in St.Ives and was a close friend of Hepworth. Gabo's sculptures incorporating plastics and nylon stringing were highly regarded by his contemporaries--Spiral Theme of 1941 (coll. Tate Gallery, London) was described at the time by Herbert Read as "the highest point ever reached by the aesthetic intuition of man" (Herbert Read, 'Vulgarity & Impotence: Speculations on the Present State of the Arts', Horizon, vol. 5, no. 28, April 1942, p.269). This more constructivist approach to the creation of space within a sculptural form also suited the position that both she and Nicholson had in relation to the younger constructivist circle of artists in London, notably Kenneth Martin. This is particularly relevant when considering that the original Orpheus sculpture, Theme on Electronics (Orpheus) (Private collection) was designed to be mounted on an electrically powered turntable, thus being both conceived fully in the round and including a sense of animation by rotation.

The making of Orpheus and Curlew was also a departure for Hepworth, as the use of cut sheet metal allowed for an openness in the work that was not structurally possible in either wood or carved stone. The sculptor Brian Wall, who was one of Hepworth's studio assistants at the time, has offered valuable insight into the process by which the pieces were made. The initial form of the metal shape was cut out from a cardboard template, the sharp edges were filed away, and, since Hepworth did not wish the metal heated, the curvature was then laboriously achieved by 'cold-rolling' the sheet by hand with a piece of wood. The sheets were patinated by hand, with most of the sculptures retaining a loosely-brushed greenish-pink coloring. The stringing also appears to have been done by eye rather than strict measurement, and the small graduations in the spacing of the holes are consistent with adjustments to compensate for the curvature of the metal.

The Orpheus title is both consistent with the more frequent use of Greek names in her work following her visit to the Aegean in 1954, and evokes the shape of the lyre of the mythical poet.