Doves 1927 BH 3
Introduction
Hepworth's interaction with her landscape developed through sculpture, especially after 1940, when she moved to Cornwall. Her formative years as a sculptor, from her time as a scholar in Italy to the meeting and collaboration with her contemporaries, matured her ability to capture feeling though abstract forms.
Doves 1927 BH 3
Although lots of the literature I have read about her, life refer back to her childhood spent in the Yorkshire countryside, as a major influence that led on to her producing landscape sculptures. I do not think this is the case. Her development in the 1930's, being part of various art groups such as Unit One and 7&5 Society, shows how she was influenced by her contemporaries, artists and sculptors such as John Skeaping (whom she married in 1925), Henry Moore, Naum Gabo, Ben Nicholson (whom she married in 1932), Giocometti. Though their collaboration as artists and thinkers they developed their own artistic language in pre-war Britain.
Ball Plane and Hole, 1936 BH 81
Her experimental sculpture - working at the forefront of art in the 1930's built a base for her to develop further in her own way. The outbreak of war prompted a family move to St Ives in Cornwall.