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Key facts about Barbara Hepworth and her art

Barbara Hepworth was born in 1903, in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. She died in 1975.

She was a British artist most famous for her sculptures.

Her sculptures are abstract. They usually have smooth shapes and curved lines.

She loved nature and was inspired by the shapes and lines that she saw in it, such as hills and pebbles from the beach.

Hepworth's sculptures have different textures on them.

She used materials like wood, stone and bronze and often added strings to her sculptures. Hepworth said "the strings were the tension I felt between myself and the sea, the wind or the hills."

Many of Barbara's sculptures are outside in nature and in public places such as parks. Her sculptures often have holes in them so that you can look at the nature on the other side through them.

Watch: Barbara Hepworth - the sculptor

What materials did Barbara Hepworth use?

Take a look at some of the materials Barbara Hepworth used to make her sculptures.

Activity

Activity

Make your own sculpture

You don't have to use wood or bronze to make your own sculpture. Why not try to make one with soft dough or modelling clay ?

It doesn’t have to look like anything in particular. It can be abstract like Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures.

Try and make:

• a 3D circle (a sphere)
• a 3D triangle (a pyramid)
• a 3D square (a cube)

You could even add a spy hole in your sculpture like Barbara Hepworth did.

Try using your hands and fingers in different ways to make your sculpture.

• You could make some parts of your sculpture feel smooth and some of it feel rough or bumpy.

• Use your fingers to poke holes through the middle of your sculpture.

• Try rolling the dough or clay back and forward using all of your fingers, to make a cylinder or sausage shape.

• See if you can join two different sculptures together to make a new one.

Did you know?

• Barbara Hepworth made around 600 sculptures in her lifetime.
• Some of her sculptures are so tall that she had to climb a ladder to make them.
• Barbara lived and worked in St Ives, Cornwall for a lot of her life.
• The house she lived in is now a museum about her life and work. Many of her unfinished works and the tools she used to make them are still there.
• Barbara Hepworth was inspired by landscape and nature from an early age, especially after going on long car journeys with her father. She said "hills were sculptures" and "the roads defined the forms".

Quiz

Glossary

Here are the meanings of some important words.

Abstract - Art that doesn't represent reality, but uses shapes, colours and textures for effect.
Bronze - A type of metal.
Sculpture - A type of art that is three-dimensional or not flat.
Texture - How something feels when you touch it.