芭芭拉·赫普沃斯

Gimpel Fils, London (acquired from the artist before March 1960)
Galerie Gimpel & Hanover, Zurich (acquired from the above)
Acquired from the above by the late owner in 1975

Oslo, Oslo Kunstnernes, Britisk i Kunstnernes hus: Gouacher, akvareller, tegninger, skulptur, 1966
London, Gimpel Fils, Barbara Hepworth, 1972, no. 11
London, Gimpel Fils, Barbara Hepworth: 50 Sculptures from 1935 to 1970, 1975, no. 25, illustrated in the catalogue

Josef P. Hodin, Barbara Hepworth, Life and Work, New York, 1961, no. 269, illustration of another cast on the cover
Abraham M. Hammacher, Barbara Hepworth, London, 1968, illustration of another cast p. 152
Barbara Hepworth, Barbara Hepworth: A Pictorial Autobiography, London, 1970, illustrations of another cast pp. 83 & 86

Polished bronze, slightly tarnished. Apart from a few tiny nicks to the surface, only visible on close inspection, this work is in very good condition.
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Serene Head (Thea), executed in 1959, possesses the fundamental clarity of form for which Hepworth is best known. The polished surface of the bronze is rarely found in the artist’s œuvre as it was not until as late as 1956 that she began to use the material, and then mainly for large-scale sculptures such as Winged Figure II  which was commissioned by the John Lewis Partnership to adorn their flagship store in Oxford Street in London. The late 1950s was a period of dramatically increasing international acclaim for Barbara Hepworth. In 1958, she had been made C.B.E. and received a major commission for State House in London. She became the senior figure in St. Ives as Ben Nicholson left for Switzerland and in 1959 was awarded the Grand Prix at the Fifth São Paulo Bienal organised by the British Council. It was also a period of great activity with Hepworth working in multiple materials, producing sculpture intended to be cast in bronze for the first time and continuing to carve directly into wood and stone.

 

Throughout her career Hepworth focused much of her attention on the exploration of three basic sculptural structures – two forms, the closed form and the standing form, as in the present work. These elemental configurations allowed Hepworth to introduce both figurative and landscape elements into her elegantly pure abstract art. Serene Head (Thea) is undoubtedly abstract in form, however by calling the work a 'head', Hepworth tempts the viewer to look for some representation of a face in the markings on the surface.  The incision becomes an indication of facial features and the concavity an eye. Furthermore, the additional title – Thea – recalls sculpture’s ancient roots, putting the viewer in mind of classical Greece. Thea was a Titan and mother of the Celestial deities: Helios, god of the Sun; Selene, goddess of the Moon, and Eos, goddess of the Dawn. Hepworth recognised the important relationship her work had with the Mediterranean in a discussion with Josef P. Hodin, which he later recalled: 'We... spoke about the Mediterranean around which every idea, concept and form, art, myth and religion, philosophy and science of Europe was born, without which we could not exist even for an instant' (quoted in Matthew Gale & Chris Stephens, Barbara Hepworth: Works in the Tate Gallery Collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum, St. Ives, London, 1999, pp. 226-228).