Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975)
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Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975)

Pierced Form (Amulet)

Details
Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975)
Pierced Form (Amulet)
signed, numbered, dated and stamped with foundry mark 'Barbara Hepworth 1962 5/9 Morris/Singer/FOUNDERS/LONDON' (on the reverse at the base edge)
bronze with a green patina
12 in. (30.5 cm.) high, including base
Conceived in 1962 in an edition of 9, plus an artist's cast. This work was cast in 1963.
This work is recorded as BH 316.
Provenance
with Marlborough Fine Art, London, where purchased by the previous owner on 25 April 1968.
Bequeathed from the above to the present owner.
Literature
H. Read, A Concise History of Modern Sculpture, London, 1964.
Exhibition catalogue, Barbara Hepworth Sculpture and Drawings, London, Gimpel Fils, 1964, n.p., no. 12, illustrated.
Exhibition catalogue, Barbara Hepworth, Basel, Kunsthalle, 1965, n.p., no. 24, another cast illustrated.
Exhibition catalogue, Barbara Hepworth, Turin, Galeria Civic d'Arte Moderna, 1965, pp. 80-81, no. 32, another cast illustrated.
Exhibition catalogue, Barbara Hepworth, London, Tate Gallery, 1968, p. 69, no. 124, illustrated
A. Bowness, The Complete Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960-69, London, 1971, p. 33, no. 316, pl. 62, another cast illustrated.
M. Gale and C. Stephens, Barbara Hepworth: Works in the Tate Collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum St Ives, London, 2004, p. 226, another cast.
S. Bowness (ed.), Barbara Hepworth The Plasters: The Gift to Wakefield, Farnham, 2011, pp. 130-131, no. 18, figs 23-24, plaster and another cast illustrated.
Exhibited
Zurich, Gimpel-Hanover Galerie, Barbara Hepworth Sculpture and Drawings, November 1963, no. 12.
London, Gimpel Fils, Barbara Hepworth Sculpture and Drawings, June 1964, no. 12, another cast exhibited.
Copenhagen, British Council, Kunstforeningen, Barbara Hepworth, September - October 1964, no. 27: this exhibition travelled to Stockholm, Moderna Museet, November - December 1964; Helsinki, Ateneum, January - February 1965; and Oslo, Kunstnernes Hus, March 1965.
Otterlo, Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller, Barbara Hepworth, May - July 1965, no. 35: this exhibition travelled to Basel, Kunsthalle, September - October 1965; Turin, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna, October - November 1965, no. 32; Karlsruhe, Badischer Kunstverein, February - March 1966; and Essen, Museum Folkwang, April - June 1966.
Montreal, Expo 67, The Genius of Britain, 1967, catalogue not traced.
London, Tate Gallery, Barbara Hepworth, April - May 1968, no. 124.
St Ives, Public Library, St Ives Council, Barbara Hepworth (commemorating the Honorary Freedom of St Ives, 1968), September 1968, ex-catalogue, plaster cast exhibited.
Special notice
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

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Angus Granlund
Angus Granlund

Lot Essay


First exhibited in November 1963 at Gimpel Fils, London, in the British Council touring exhibition in Scandinavia from September 1964 - March 1965, in the travelling exhibition starting in Otterlo at the Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller in 1965 and then Hepworth's major retrospective at Tate, London in 1968. Hepworth gifted Herbert Read a cast of Pierced Form (Amulet) on the occasion of his seventieth birthday in December 1963.

Pierced Form (Amulet), 1962, prompted Hepworth to make Pierced Form the following year, a larger marble sculpture now in the Collection of Tate, London. Carved from Pentelicon marble, Pierced Form stands at almost 50 inches high and echoes the form of the smaller bronze which inspired it, including the shaped base. 'The subtitle 'amulet', meaning a talisman or charm, was one which Hepworth used in the preceding year for the small bronzes Reclining Solitary Form (Amulet), 1961 (BH 307) and Upright Solitary Form (Amulet), 1961 (BH 308).

We are grateful to Dr Sophie Bowness for her assistance with the cataloguing apparatus for this work. Dr Sophie Bowness is preparing the revised catalogue raisonné of Hepworth’s sculpture.

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