Barbara Hepworth: The Sculptor in the Studio

This book presents an intimate story of English sculptor Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) at work. Hepworth’s granddaughter, Sophie Bowness, draws on Hepworth’s correspondence and family memories and records to offer the first study devoted to Hepworth’s studio in the English seaside town of St. Ives in Cornwall. The book illuminates the ways in which the place and Hepworth’s work were bound together; the studio, and especially the garden that Hepworth shaped, was the ideal context in which her sculptures were viewed. Following Hepworth’s death in 1975, the studio became the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, which was then given to the Tate Gallery, laying the foundation for Tate’s current St. Ives location. It contains the largest group of Hepworth’s works, permanently on display in the place in which they were created.