Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975)

Sculptor, born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, who studied at Leeds College of Art, 1919-21 and the Royal College of Art, 1921-24. While at the RCA, Hepworth was not entirely satisfied with the teaching there and took part-time drawing classes at Leon Underwood's Brook Green School. In 1924 she travelled to Italy on a scholarship, studied the Italian technique of marble carving and married the sculptor, John Skeaping. She returned to London, and in 1928 moved to Parkhill Road Studios, Hampstead, where her neighbours were Cecil Stephenson, Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson. She had her first major exhibition in 1928 at the Beaux Arts Gallery, her work there consisting of stone carvings of figures and animals. About this time she showed at the Lucy Wertheim Gallery and in 1932 and 1933 she and Ben Nicholson visited the Paris studios of leading French artists. Her marriage to Skeaping ended in 1932. In 1933 she joined the Abstraction-Creation, an int