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Barbara Hepworth: Life and Art at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne

24/07/2023

Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life. Towner Gallery Eastbourne. Photo by Caroline Banks.

Whenever I have a trip out of London (embarrassingly rare I know) I aim to visit a museum or gallery.

This time it was a welcome return to the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne where this excellent show, Barbara Hepworth: Life and Art, is on till early September.

Exhibitions like this are perfect for me: full of content yet manageable in size.

Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life. Towner Gallery Eastbourne. Photo by Caroline Banks.

Famous as a sculptor, it’s easy to forget how good Hepworth’s drawings are and this show gives us many beautiful, sensitive examples.

Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life. Towner Gallery Eastbourne. Photo by Caroline Banks.

The Hands 1948 (below) is one of a series showing a medical team. Here they are before surgery. The theatre sister on the left is the only woman in the group and defined with the most detailed hands.

Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life. Towner Gallery Eastbourne. Photo by Caroline Banks.

Her mark-making can be so delicate yet the rendering of volume and mass remains her prime concern.

Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life. Towner Gallery Eastbourne. Photo by Caroline Banks.

Hepworth also designed for the stage – Sophocles’s Electra at the Old Vic theatre, London. Look at how the shadows extend the sculpture (Apollo 1951), integrating it with its surroundings.

Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life. Towner Gallery Eastbourne. Photo by Caroline Banks.

Space exploration and lunar landings increased her fascination with circular forms (it’s not just me): sun and moon as in this print from the mid-sixties.

Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life. Towner Gallery Eastbourne. Photo by Caroline Banks.

This small bronze sculpture on a turntable (Six forms on a Circle 1967) reminds me of a contemporary Stone Henge .

Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life. Towner Gallery Eastbourne. Photo by Caroline Banks.

Do visit this if you can – I thoroughly recommend it.

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