Dame Barbara Hepworth

Marlborough Fine Art, London, where acquired by the present owner in 1970

New York, Gimpel Gallery, Opening Exhibition, March 1969, cat. no.22 (another cast);
London, Gimpel Fils, Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture and Reliefs, June - August 1969, cat. no.24 (another cast);
London, Marlborough Fine Art, Barbara Hepworth: Recent Work, Sculpture, Paintings, Prints, February - March 1970, cat. no.14 (another cast).

Alan Bowness, Barbara Hepworth 1960-69, Lund Humphries, London, 1971, cat. no.468, illustrated p.47 (another cast).

The sculpture appears sound. The surface of the bronze has a few very tiny pitmarks in places due to the casting process. There is some slight uneveness in tone to the polished surface in places, primarily apparent to the bottom of the sculpture at the right. The work has recently benefited from a light polish. Subject to the above, the work appears to be in very good overall condition. The sculpture is affixed to a circular bronze base with one central support. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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We are grateful to Dr Sophie Bowness for her kind assistance with the cataloguing apparatus for the present work, which will feature in her forthcoming revised catalogue raisonné of the Artist's sculpture.

'The importance of light in relation to form will always interest me ... Light gives full play to our tactile perceptions through the experience of our eyes’ (Hepworth quoted in exhibition catalogue, Barbara Hepworth Polished Bronzes, New Art Centre Sculpture Park & Gallery, East Winterslow, 2001, un-numbered).

By 1969, Hepworth was at the height of her fame, gaining recognition both at home and abroad. Following her representing Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1950, a major monograph of her work came out in 1952 with a preface by Herbert Read which led to two retrospective exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1954 and 1962. She represented Britain at the São Paolo Biennial in 1959 and by 1965 she had been given several honours, most significantly trustee of the Tate Gallery. She was now sought after for public commissions, the most famous of which was the commission for the United Nations headquarters in New York in 1964.

Horizontal Form was conceived in the wake of all this success, at a time when Hepworth was continuing to experiment, combining pre and post war themes and introducing new materials into her work. From the mid 1950s Hepworth had started using bronze as a material alongside wood and stone. Horizontal Form belongs to a group of works that Hepworth made in polished, unpatinated bronze characterised by a luxurious golden finish and can be seen as akin to the exotic coloured stones and highly finished marble and slate carvings she was also making at this time.

Horizontal Form provides an important manifestation of the major themes that Hepworth had explored throughout her artistic career. The half ovoid form with the ends flattened off draws together strands of both the organic-derived forms of the post-war period and the abstract modernist sculpture of the pre-war years. In particular the piercing of the work is a direct reference to an important strand of Hepworth’s sculptural language which was seen first in her seminal work Pierced Form 1932, now sadly lost. Whilst a number of European sculptors had introduced piercings into their work much earlier, notably Archipenko and Lipchitz, this had tended to be organic and related to the stylisation of their subject. Hepworth's use of a non-objective piercing of the form in 1932 appears to pre-date that of her contemporary and friend Henry Moore by somewhere approaching a year. Whilst such questions of dating are difficult to pin down, what is irrefutable is that Hepworth's introduction of this element greatly enriched the possibilities of abstract sculpture by abolishing the concept of a closed, and thus entire form, and brought the individual sculpture firmly into the environment within which it was placed. The piercing also serves to create contrast between the solidity of the form and adds a delicacy and openness to it, as well as bringing light and reflection into the heart of the work. The use of polished bronze in Horizontal Form heightens this effect; in the changing light of the surrounding environment different reflections and patterns dance across on the surface of the sculpture, breaking up its solidity still further and drawing us through the central cavity into the space beyond. Hepworth here has simplified her piercing choosing a simple cylindrical opening, abandoning the spiralling hole seen in works such as Pierced Form (Epidauros) (1960, Tate, London). This reflects the gradual simplification of her work from this period. The more geometric and direct piercing explores not only the play of mass and light but also serves to unite the space in front and behind the bronze drawing the immediate environment into the work. It is in pieces such as Horizontal Form that we see the culmination of Hepworth’s artistic vision.