‘Barbara Hepworth is one of the most important artists of the 20th century, with a unique artistic vision that demands to be looked at in-depth. This exhibition will shine a light on Hepworth’s wide-ranging interests and how they infused her art practice. Deeply spiritual and passionately engaged with political, social and technological debates in the 20th century, Hepworth was obsessed with how the physical encounter with sculpture could impact the viewer and alter their perception of the world.’ Eleanor Clayton, Curator

Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life invites the visitor on a journey from the modernist carving that launched Hepworth’s career in the 1920s and 1930s, through the iconic strung sculptures of the 1940s and 1950s, to her later large-scale commissions. This exhibition reveals how she integrated music, dance, science, space exploration, politics and religion, as well as events in her personal life, into her work, creating a singular vision of art and life.

Starting from her roots in Yorkshire, a detailed look at Hepworth’s childhood in Yorkshire through archive material and photographs will include some of the artist’s earliest-known paintings, carvings and life drawings as she began to explore movement and the human form. A proponent of direct carving, Hepworth combined an acute sensitivity to the organic materials of wood and stone with the development of a radical new abstract language of form. On display will be Carving 1932, the earliest existing ‘pierced form’ of Hepworth, which is rarely publicly exhibited, on special loan here from a private collection.