barbara hepworth

CARVING EROTIC FORCES

The legendary and stylish British sculptor Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) redefined abstraction as a sensual and erotic force, elevating sculpture to a radical ideal of vital perfection that helped to shape the modern era.

Hepworth began her artistic path in 1920 at the Leeds School of Art, where she met Henry Moore, initiating a lifelong dialogue. In 1933, she cofounded the avant-garde group Unit One, which sought to unify painting, sculpture, and architecture into a single modern language. Rejecting both academic naturalism and rigid, mechanistic modernism, the group promoted a sensual, organic abstraction rooted in lived experience. By the late 1930s, Hepworth had established herself as a central force in the emergence of English abstraction.

Working in wood, stone, bronze, and clay, Hepworth shaped forms that seemed effortless yet were the result of meticulous craftsmanship, their surfaces evolving into lyrical, biomorphic abstractions. Over time, naturalism gave way…