Three Oblique Forms (February)

Details

DAME BARBARA HEPWORTH (1903-1975)
Three Oblique Forms (February)
signed, numbered and dated 'Barbara Hepworth/1967 5/9' (on the base)
polished bronze
10 1/4 in. (26.7 cm.) high, excluding base
Conceived in 1967 and cast by Morris Singer, London.
This work is recorded as BH442.

Provenance

with Laing Galleries, London, where purchased by P. Herriot in September 1968.
with New Art Centre, London.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 7 June 1991, lot 367.
Property from the Estate of Renee L. Rupert Granville-Grossman; Christie's, London, 20 November 2013, lot 2, where purchased by the present owner.

Literature

Exhibition catalogue, Barbara Hepworth, London, Tate Gallery, 1968, pp. 43, 61, no. 177.
A. Bowness (ed.), The Complete Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960-1969, London, 1971, p. 44, no. 442, pl. 162, another cast illustrated.
Exhibition catalogue, Barbara Hepworth: 50 Sculptures from 1935 to 1970, London, Gimpel Fils, 1975, n.p., no. 50, another cast illustrated.
Exhibition catalogue, Barbara Hepworth, Valencia, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern, 2004, p. 187, exhibition not numbered, another cast illustrated.
S. Bowness (ed.), Barbara Hepworth: The Plasters The Gift to Wakefield, Farnham, 2011, pp. 61, 63, 93, 140, 152, 154-155, no. 32, fig. 41, another cast and plaster version illustrated.
S. Bowness, Barbara Hepworth: The Sculptor in the Studio, London, 2017, pp. 107, 122-123, plaster version illustrated.

Exhibited

London, Tate Gallery, Barbara Hepworth, April - May 1968, no. 177.
St Ives, Guildhall, Exhibition on the Occasion of the Conferment of the Honorary Freedom of the Borough of St Ives on Bernard Leach and Barbara Hepworth, September - October 1968, another cast exhibited, ex. cat.
London, Gimpel Fils, Barbara Hepworth: 50 sculptures from 1935 to 1970, October - November 1975, no. 50, another cast exhibited.
Wakefield, Art Gallery, Barbara Hepworth: Polished Bronzes, May - June 2003, exhibition not numbered, another cast exhibited: this exhibition travelled to Gouda, Museum Het Catharina, 2003; and Gasthuis, July - September 2003.
Valencia, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern, Barbara Hepworth, September - November 2004, exhibition not numbered, another cast exhibited.
Wakefield, The Hepworth Wakefield, Barbara Hepworth: Art and Life, May 2021- February 2022, another cast exhibited, exhibition not numbered: this exhibition travelled to Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, April - October 2022.

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.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Alice Murray Head of Evening Sale

amurray@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2423

Lot Essay

Three oblique forms (February) forms part of a group of sculpture that occupied Hepworth in the second half of the 1960s. Several small-scale works were produced and these were subsequently worked up to form monumental sculptures, including Three Oblique Forms (Walk In), Four Square (Walk Through) and Two Forms (Divided Circle).

In these table-top sculptures, Hepworth continued to explore the relationship between man and the architectural environment, she was looking for something that the spectator might participate in, inhabit and touch: a reflection of her confrontation with mortality in her fight with cancer in 1965-66. This was certainly achieved through the monumental works, but also on a more intimate scale with the table-top pieces.

Hepworth's intention with these sculptures was to engage the viewer to use the prospects through the circles to frame nature and the world around. By using a highly polished finish to the bronze she was able to reflect, not only the circular holes in other positions on the sculpture, which provide an endlessly different perspective, but also a temptingly tactile jewel-like sculpture.

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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