Six Forms on a Circle

1967
polished bronze

signed Barbara Hepworth; dated 1967 (on upper surface of base); inscribed Morris Singer Foundry London (on side of base)

Style/Movement: Abstract, Contemporary

Primarily a carver in wood and stone, Hepworth did not begin working in bronze until 1956.  Hepworth’s technique was to cast her bronzes from plaster, which she carved when it had hardened on an armature.  “I only learned to love bronze,” she wrote to Ben Nicholson in 1966, “when I found that it was gentle and I could file it and carve it and chisel it.  Each one is a ‘person’ to me – as much as a marble.”

The material enabled Hepworth to greatly increase her output in response to the demand for her work (through the production of editions), and it also allowed her to expand the range and scale of her sculpture.  As her reputation grew in he 1950s, Hepworth began looking towards the possibility of working specifically for sacting in bonze, partly in response to the rigours of the increasingly international nature of her exhibiting schedule.  Hepworth devised for herself a working method by which she could both carve and cast.  Using an aluminium armature, she then covered this in large quantities of plaster which could then be carved back.  Once cast, the intricately worked surface could be further enlivened with the application of a coloured patina.

The monumental bronze Single Form (1961-1964), commissioned for the United Nations building in New York as a memorial to Dag Hammarskjöld, helped to seal her international reputation.

In contrast to the textured bronzes, Barbara Hepworth’s polished works are characterized by their smooth surfaces and brilliant shine.   The artist intended them to be touched and wrote of the relationship between light and touch, “the importance of light in relation to the form will always interest me….  Light gives full play to our tactile perceptions through the experience of our eyes.”