THE BARBARA HEPWORTH: ART AND LIFE EXHIBITION IS ON AT THE TATE ST IVES GALLERY BETWEEN 26 NOVEMBER 2022 AND 1 MAY 2023. IT FOCUSES ON THIS EXTRAORDINARY ARTIST’S LIFE AND BEST WORKS IN CORNWALL
It’s easy to think of Barbara Hepworth as a talent who became one of Cornwall’s gifted darlings. It’s easy to think of the artist as St Ives‘ most cherished daughter too. But it’s not often that you think of Hepworth fittingly for what she actually was: one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century. She was just so much bigger than St Ives or Cornwall or Europe. Globally, she was an immense talent in sculpture.
But Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth is always in our hearts because of her close association with St Ives and Cornwall as a whole. A leading figure in British sculpture and modern art, she created a studio and sculpture garden – then it was called Trewyn – in St Ives, where she worked and lived until her death in 1975. She was awarded the Freedom of St Ives during her life and she’s still posthumously contributing today as that studio and garden have become the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, which opened in 1976. It’s just round the corner from the famous Tate St Ives gallery, which has managed the Hepworth attraction since 1980.
And it’s the Tate St Ives that’s behind this special exhibition on Hepworth’s life and works at the end of 2022 and start of 2023. The ‘Barbara Hepworth: Art and Life’ exhibition opens on Saturday 26 November 2022 and runs all the way until 1 May 2023 in the gallery next to Porthmeor Beach. It especially focuses on the artist’s life in Cornwall. She moved to Cornwall in 1939 with her husband – the abstract painter Ben Nicholson – and her young family but she ended up divorcing Nicholson in 1951 before she became a hugely important, influential and active figure in the development of the once-blossoming St Ives modernist art community.
This exhibition brings together many of the artist’s most important works. And if you go along, you simply must combine your visit with a trip to the nearby Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden. As the organisers put it: ‘this is an unprecedented opportunity to explore the life and work of one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century’. No more plugging necessary…