.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
'In 1958 Lilian Somerville of the British Council put Hepworth in touch with the firm of architects Treherne & Norman Preston who were working on an enormous office block on High Holborn for the Wohl Group. This was to be State House (recently demolished), and the sculpture which Hepworth realised was to be 'Meridian' [1958-60, J.P. Hodin, op. cit., no. 250, fig. 1]. (Now owned by the Pepsi Cola Corporation, U.S.A.) Somerville explained that 'for once these architects do not want symbolism or a subject or a theme but an abstract sculpture'. In a British Council transcript of a taped interview Hepworth spoke of needing 'an immediate formal impact when first seeing the site. With this commission I felt no hesitation whatsover. By next morning I saw the sculpture in my mind quite clearly. I made my first maquette, and from this, began the armature for the working model. The architect must create a valid space for sculpture so that it becomes organically part of our spiritual perception as well as our three dimensional life. To do less is to destroy sculpture and admit to an impoverished architecture'. At Christmas 1958 she told Ben that 'the big job for Holborn is a fantastic experience which I would not have missed, tho' the bigger the sculpture the less money one makes, but it is going so much slower than I anticipated'. In 1960 Hepworth wrote, 'Mr Mortimer is an angel and is most generously going to build the wall higher to make 'Meridian' look perfect'. 'Meridian' was unveiled by Philip Hendy in March 1960' (see P. Curtis and A.G. Wilkinson, op. cit, pp. 154-5).
Peter Murray comments, 'Barbara Hepworth loved to carve; the process was critical to her development as an artist. She did not like modelling or methods of working which prevented direct contact with materials. As a result she came to bronze casting rather late in her career, the first appearing in 1956 ... Hepworth approached bronze as a carver, constructing large plaster forms which she carved before casting. This enabled her to maintain the kinaesthetic aspect of carving that was essential to the fluidity of her forms. Leaving her mark on the finished work was vitally important to her: 'Even at the very last minute, when it's finished I take a hatchet to it.' She continued to use bronze alongside wood and stone, until the end of her life ... Bronze enabled Barbara Hepworth to fulfil her dreams of creating sculptures for the landscape. 'All my sculpture comes out of the landscape - the feel of the years as one walks over it, the resistance, the weathering, the outcrops, the growth, structures ... no sculpture really lives until it goes back into landscape.' The Cornish landscape stirred childhood memories of Yorkshire, providing strong images of form, shape, and texture. 'The hills were sculptures; the roads defined the form ... the sensation has never left me. I, the sculptor, am the landscape'' (see C. Stephens (ed.), Barbara Hepworth Centenary, exhibition catalogue, St Ives, Tate Gallery, 2003, p. 135).
Of the nine casts produced of Maquette (Variation on a theme) one is owned by the British Council and another is in the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Peter Murray comments, 'Barbara Hepworth loved to carve; the process was critical to her development as an artist. She did not like modelling or methods of working which prevented direct contact with materials. As a result she came to bronze casting rather late in her career, the first appearing in 1956 ... Hepworth approached bronze as a carver, constructing large plaster forms which she carved before casting. This enabled her to maintain the kinaesthetic aspect of carving that was essential to the fluidity of her forms. Leaving her mark on the finished work was vitally important to her: 'Even at the very last minute, when it's finished I take a hatchet to it.' She continued to use bronze alongside wood and stone, until the end of her life ... Bronze enabled Barbara Hepworth to fulfil her dreams of creating sculptures for the landscape. 'All my sculpture comes out of the landscape - the feel of the years as one walks over it, the resistance, the weathering, the outcrops, the growth, structures ... no sculpture really lives until it goes back into landscape.' The Cornish landscape stirred childhood memories of Yorkshire, providing strong images of form, shape, and texture. 'The hills were sculptures; the roads defined the form ... the sensation has never left me. I, the sculptor, am the landscape'' (see C. Stephens (ed.), Barbara Hepworth Centenary, exhibition catalogue, St Ives, Tate Gallery, 2003, p. 135).
Of the nine casts produced of Maquette (Variation on a theme) one is owned by the British Council and another is in the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.