The Move to Metal

In 1956 an important change took place in Hepworth’s work as she returned to making sculptures in bronze after a period of around thirty years.

At art school Hepworth had been taught the traditional method of modelling for clay and had produced a number of bronze portrait busts, such as Head of Mrs A.R.T Richards (Quita) (c.1924-5). However, as she embraced direct carving she also rejected bronze, working almost solely as a carver until 1956.

Hepworth would begin by producing an armature of aluminium or chicken wire, before applying wet Plaster of Paris which could be built up using either tools or her bare hands. When dry, the surface of the plaster could be carved.

‘I’ll begin with the bones in metal and then on the bones I will lay the planes in plaster and then carve [...] I love this idea of starting with the skeleton, knowing how you draw the bones of the human figure, and then you clothe it with its muscles, its skin and its texture. This I think is fundamental in me, whether I’m carving from a piece of wood or building up a work for bronze’

~Barbara Hepworth, Westward Television Film, 1967

Hepworth’s return to working in bronze was likely in part due to her increasing professional success. Casting in metal meant editions could be made of the same work, allowing her to greatly increase her output. Bronze also provided her with the opportunity to produce works on a  larger scale that would be suitable for outdoor display.     

While Hepworth was exploring these spiralling curved forms in her sculpture, she was also working on gestural paintings that utilise similar open forms. A number of these works were given the subtitle ‘project for sculpture’, such as The Seed (Project for Metal Sculpture) (1957), suggesting a direct connection between the paintings and the concurrent sculptures.

'I feel most strongly about the two mainstreams in contemporary sculpture carving on the one hand and a more fluid approach (in metal) which is perhaps nearer to the realism of painting than carving [...]'

~Barbara Hepworth, 1952

There are even direct connections between individual paintings and sculptures, such as the 1957 brass sculpture Winged Figure and the painting Winged Figure – Brass (Project for Sculpture) of the same year. The 1957 Winged Figure would later form the basis for Hepworth’s Winged Figure (1961-2) commission for John Lewis on Oxford Street, London.

The open forms of bronze also allowed the viewer a greater participation in the work. As Hepworth observed, ‘there is a stronger sense of participating in the form – you want to go in and out as you look at a sculpture like Trezion’. Archival photographs show Hepworth physically enveloped within the coiled forms of Oval Form (Trezion) (1961-3).

Hepworth used metal to continue some of her earlier developments in carving, such as the use of stringing in her Orpheus sculptures. The strings were made from reddish brown fishing line.

She was also able to continue her earlier explorations with colour when painting the inner concavities of her carvings. Colour could be achieved in bronze casting through the use of patination, the surface colour produced through chemical reactions.

Hepworth gave very precise instructions to the foundry regarding patination. Many of her bronzes contrast a dark exterior with a lighter interior, highlighting the distinction between inner and outer form as she had done in her earlier carvings. 

Hepworth continued to work in metal for the rest of her career, allowing her to carry out major large scale commissions, such as Winged Figure (1961-2) for John Lewis’ headquarters in London. Today such commissions continue her legacy in the public domain.