DAME BARBARA HEPWORTH (1903-1975)

A sculpture from the beginning of the artist’s career, the present work was conceived in the early 1920s while Hepworth was studying at the Royal College of Art in London. By 1925, when it was cast in bronze, she had travelled to Italy on scholarship, and had been recognised as runner up in the prestigious Prix de Rome. She met up with the prize winner, John Skeaping, and he became her future husband in Italy that year. His early influence on Barbara is visible in this rare, figurative sculpture. Unusually for Hepworth, it also demonstrates the spirit of the Art Deco movement, in its strikingly modern representation of a standing nude.