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Lot Essay
The present work, Pelagos [the Greek word for 'the sea'] shares its title with one of Hepworth's best-known carved works, the carved elm, stringed and part-painted Pelagos [BH 133] carved and created in 1946 (fig. 1, Tate, London). Matthew Gale and Chris Stephens suggest that this sculpture 'epitomises Hepworth's post-war sculpture. In its combination of organic form, natural material and the constructivist technique of stringing, it may be seen as a successful synthesis of the different forces in her earlier works' (see M. Gale and C. Stephens, Barbara Hepworth: Works in the Tate Gallery Collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum St Ives, London, 1999, p. 98).
Describing the genesis of the carving Pelagos the artist comments, 'A new era seemed to begin for me when we moved into a larger house [in September 1943] high on the cliff overlooking the grand sweep of the whole of St Ives Bay from the Island to Godrevy lighthouse. There was a sudden release from what had seemed to be an almost unbearable diminution of space and now I had a studio workroom looking straight towards the horizon of the sea and enfolded (but with always the escape for the eye straight out to the Atlantic) by the arms of the land to the left and the right of me. I have used this idea in Pelagos 1946.
'The sea, a flat diminishing plane, held within itself the capacity to radiate an infinitude of blues, greys, greens and even pinks of strange hues: the lighthouse and its strange rocky island was an eye; the island of St Ives an arm, a hand, a face. The rock formation of the great bay had a withinness of form which led my imagination straight to the country of West Penwith behind me - although the visual thrust went straight out to sea. The incoming and receding tides made strange and wonderful calligraphy on the pale granite sand which sparkled with felspar and mica. The rich mineral deposits of Cornwall were apparent on the very surface of things; quartz, amethyst, and topaz; tin and copper below in the old mine shafts, and geology and pre-history - a thousand fantasies of form and purpose, structure and life, which had gone into the making of what I saw and what I was' (see H. Read, Barbara Hepworth, London, 1952, section 4).
The present work, which has remained in the same collection for forty-seven years shares the same inspiration as the carving which was its forerunner, fifteen years earlier.
We are very grateful to Dr Sophie Bowness for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
Describing the genesis of the carving Pelagos the artist comments, 'A new era seemed to begin for me when we moved into a larger house [in September 1943] high on the cliff overlooking the grand sweep of the whole of St Ives Bay from the Island to Godrevy lighthouse. There was a sudden release from what had seemed to be an almost unbearable diminution of space and now I had a studio workroom looking straight towards the horizon of the sea and enfolded (but with always the escape for the eye straight out to the Atlantic) by the arms of the land to the left and the right of me. I have used this idea in Pelagos 1946.
'The sea, a flat diminishing plane, held within itself the capacity to radiate an infinitude of blues, greys, greens and even pinks of strange hues: the lighthouse and its strange rocky island was an eye; the island of St Ives an arm, a hand, a face. The rock formation of the great bay had a withinness of form which led my imagination straight to the country of West Penwith behind me - although the visual thrust went straight out to sea. The incoming and receding tides made strange and wonderful calligraphy on the pale granite sand which sparkled with felspar and mica. The rich mineral deposits of Cornwall were apparent on the very surface of things; quartz, amethyst, and topaz; tin and copper below in the old mine shafts, and geology and pre-history - a thousand fantasies of form and purpose, structure and life, which had gone into the making of what I saw and what I was' (see H. Read, Barbara Hepworth, London, 1952, section 4).
The present work, which has remained in the same collection for forty-seven years shares the same inspiration as the carving which was its forerunner, fifteen years earlier.
We are very grateful to Dr Sophie Bowness for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.