4 Sculptors Who Moulded History

Bourgeois moved to New York in 1938 and later joined the American Abstract Artists Group. Much of her work focussed on domesticity and the family. However in her later years, she began to use the spider as a recurring motif, resulting in her being nicknamed ‘Spiderwoman’.

Born in Yorkshire in 1903, Barbara Hepworth is one of the most famous sculptors of the 20th century. Her bold, modernist creations were made from a mix of materials including wood, bronze, and limestone. They range in size from small intimate pieces to monumental works.

Hepworth spent many years working in St Ives, Cornwall, and Hampstead in London. As a founding member of the Unit One art movement, her work explored abstraction and surrealism in British art. She garnered a worldwide reputation for her beautiful forms and striking designs.

Ruth Asawa was born to Japanese parents in California in 1926 and became interested in art from an early age. Later she studied under artist Josef Albers at Black Mountain College and began experimenting with crocheted wire forms.

Asawa continued to experiment with wire for the rest of her career, often using these organic, intricate shapes in her largescale public works. An activist for arts education, Asawa spent much of her life in San Francisco where many of her works remain on permanent display.

Associated with the Harlem Renaissance, Augusta Savage was born in 1892 in Jacksonville, Florida. Savage began sculpting as a child, making small figures out of the red clay of her hometown. She went on to study at the prestigious Cooper Union in New York in the early 1920s. 

Savage won numerous awards during her career and became the first woman to be elected to the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. Throughout her life, Savage campaigned for equal rights for African Americans and used black models for many of her pieces. 

Learn more about women in arts and culture.