Page 47 - Studio International - June 1966

Barbara Hepworth in her times

Above
Square forms (two sequences) 1963
Bronze Height51½ in. Edition of seven
Left
Rock Form (Porthcurno) 1964
Bronze Height96 in.
Background: Figure 1964
Bronze Height 71-¼in. Edition of six

A sculptor's landscape
Excerpts from an autobiographical essay

I cannot write anything about landscape without writing the same as the touch of a child in health, not in sickness.
about the human figure and the human spirit inhabiting the The feel of a loved person who is strong and fierce and not
landscape. For me, the whole art of sculpture is the fusion tired and bowed down. This is not an aesthetic doctrine,
of these two elements-the balance of sensation and the nor is it a mystical idea. It is essentially practical and
evocation of man in his universe. passionate ...
Every work in sculpture is ... either a figure I see, or a Sculpture is to me an affirmative statement of our will to
sensation I have, whether in Yorkshire, Cornwall or Greece, live: whether it be small, to rest in the hand; or larger, to be
or the Mediterranean. embraced; or larger still, to force us to move around it
In all natural forces there is an underlying principle of and establish our rhythm of life. Sculpture is, in the
growth and form, endlessly adjusting and purifying itself. twentieth century, a wide field of experience, with many
Only when man intervenes, as in open-cast mining, does the facets of symbol and material and individual calligraphy.
landscape become as shapeless and ugly as an old But in all these varied and exciting extensions of our
pillow. experience we always come back to the fact that we are
Whenever I am embraced by land and seascape I draw human beings of such and such a size, biologically the same
ideas for new sculptures: new forms to touch and walk as primitive man, and that it is through drawing and
round, new people to embrace, with an exactitude of form observing, or observing and drawing, that we equate our
that those without sight can hold and realize. For me it is bodies with our landscape. Barbara Hepworth
257