Dame Barbara Hepworth DBE

Private Collection, New York
Long Island Jewish Medical Center, New York (donated by the above)
Acquired by the present owner in 2007

Barbara Hepworth: Recent Work (exhibition catalogue), Marlborough Gallery, New York, 1970, no. 18, illustration in colour of another cast p. 26
Alan Bowness (ed.), The Complete Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth, 1960- 1969, London, 1971, no. 473, illustration of another cast pls. 14 (in colour), 183 & 184

W. J. Strachan, Open Air Sculpture in Britain: A Comprehensive Guide, London, 1984, no. 488, illustration of another cast p. 212
Eugene Rosenberg, Architect's Choice: Art in Architecture in Britain since 1945, London, 1992, illustration of another cast pp. 94 & 95
Christina Haberlink, Ulrike Braun & Ira Diana Mazzoni, 50 Klassiker Kunstlerinnen, Malerinnen,Bildauerinnen und Photographinnen, Gerstberg, 2002, illustration of another cast p. 26
Penelope Curtis, Barbara Hepworth, London, 2012, illustration in colour of another cast fig. 45

Hepworth's Three Obliques (Walk In) is one of the artist's most impressive works in bronze, and it represents a significant shift in her approach to the ‘Square Form’ and architectural scale. The grandeur and monumentality of the present work is mitigated by the large circular holes which pierce the three interlocking sections and invite the viewer to interact with the sculpture. The title’s implied invitation to ‘walk in’ and around the work, is perhaps the most advanced investigation of form and space made by Hepworth in the 1960s, and shows her natural mastery of the principles developed by the so called ‘New Generation’ of sculptors that included Sir Anthony Caro and Phillip King and informed the architectural quality of their work of the time. In 1962 Hepworth gave an interview to The Studio magazine in which she remarked on her interest in the abstract form and its potential appeal to viewers: ‘It is easy now to communicate with people through abstraction, and particularly so in sculpture since the whole body reacts to its presence… people become themselves a living part of the work’ (quoted in P. Curtis, op. cit., London, 2012, p. 56). It is perhaps this idea which prompted her to use part of her work’s titles to invite people to ‘Walk In’ or ‘Walk Through’ (fig. 1).

Discussing the unique forms Hepworth invested in her late bronzes and the process that created them, Alan Bowness has written: ‘Hepworth's bronze sculptures are either versions of carvings, translated into a more permanent material, or what she called “free forms”, which can only exist in the medium of bronze. The possibilities of the material fascinated her - she found that she could make forms that were more open and fluid than anything she had done in wood or stone. Cutting and bending a sheet of metal and stringing it was a part of the constructivist element in her work ... And then she found a way of making the bronze without modelling - first constructing an armature, and then building up and carving down the plaster until she reached the shape and surface she required. She loved the colour of the eventual bronze, and the variety of patination that was possible, sometimes varying the casts in a single edition. The bronzes were always returned to her from the foundry, and often worked on in the studio until she was satisfied. Like Moore, she was adamant that there should be no posthumous casts of her work, and incomplete editions were left unfinished’ (Alan Bowness, in Barbara Hepworth, Sculptures from the Estate (exhibition catalogue), Wildenstein Gallery, New York, 1996, p. 7). 

Another cast from this small edition is at the University College in Cardiff.