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Lot Essay
The monumental figure of Coré, 1960, marks a turning point in Hepworth’s career. Liberated from fiscal constraints Hepworth was free to set to work on a series of larger–scale works, sponsored by her success of the last few years: winning the Grand Prix at the São Paulo Biennale in 1959 and successfully touring America, South America and Switzerland. She relayed the bountifulness of this period in a letter to Herbert Read in December 1959, writing, ‘I have had to dispatch to various foundries all the bronzes needed for my show with Charles Lienhard next year - &, with the prize money from São Paulo, I have been able to do this without a fearful feeling of anxiety’.
This feeling of contentment was further expressed in an interview with Alan Bowness in 1970, where she described, ‘I kept thinking of large works in a landscape: this has always been a dream in my mind’ (A. Bowness, The complete sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960-69, London, 1971, p. 7). Taking the plaster cast from the original Marble Form (Coré), created in 1955-56, Hepworth created a bronze piece in 1960 in an edition of seven, its popularity being so that it was sold out by 1968. This in itself was unusual as Hepworth often created her plasters from the original plaster, rather than casting it from the original piece. It was not uncommon for Hepworth to rework or revisit ideas; she herself described the importance of repertoire, asserting that ‘every work has the germ of the next’ (ibid, p. 8), however, Coré seems to be the first to be cast from a more recent work, marking its significance for the artist.
The original marble Coré was inspired by her trip to Greece in 1954, the use of material referencing the sculptures she saw there. The name Coré itself is derived from the word ‘Core’ or ‘Kore’, a name for a type of ancient Greek female figure sculpture, ‘Kouros’ being its male counterpart. This attribution to nature and the figure was not unusual for Hepworth, with many of her most successful works exploring the relationships between the figure and landscape, as seen here. The abstract form of Coré loosely emulates that of a figure, with its vertical upright form and soft undulating curves relating to the Archaic figures she saw there, the concave circle and crescent seen as signifiers of a face. Hepworth tried to recapture the experience of continuity between her body and the natural environment, emphasising her insistence of the formal harmony between the art object and its surroundings. This is evoked in the weightiness of the piece, which grounds it to the earth and conjures up images of the Cornish landscape, where she had her studio from 1949, and where rock and cliffs rise up out of the land and sea.
There is equilibrium imbued within Coré: the density of the work balanced by its curved organic form and the choice of a dark grey patina, which harmonises the piece within the landscape. Hepworth reiterated the importance of nature as a source of inspiration in an interview for Unit One in 1934, she retorts, ‘in the contemplation of Nature we are perpetually renewed, our sense of mystery and our imagination is kept alive, and rightly understood, it gives us the power to project into a plastic medium some universal or abstract version of beauty’ (M. Gale and C. Stephens, Barbara Hepworth Works in the Tate Gallery Collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum St Ives, London, 1999, p. 16).
Other casts are in the Barbara Hepworth Museum, Tate, St Ives (1/7); and Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (4/7).
This feeling of contentment was further expressed in an interview with Alan Bowness in 1970, where she described, ‘I kept thinking of large works in a landscape: this has always been a dream in my mind’ (A. Bowness, The complete sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960-69, London, 1971, p. 7). Taking the plaster cast from the original Marble Form (Coré), created in 1955-56, Hepworth created a bronze piece in 1960 in an edition of seven, its popularity being so that it was sold out by 1968. This in itself was unusual as Hepworth often created her plasters from the original plaster, rather than casting it from the original piece. It was not uncommon for Hepworth to rework or revisit ideas; she herself described the importance of repertoire, asserting that ‘every work has the germ of the next’ (ibid, p. 8), however, Coré seems to be the first to be cast from a more recent work, marking its significance for the artist.
The original marble Coré was inspired by her trip to Greece in 1954, the use of material referencing the sculptures she saw there. The name Coré itself is derived from the word ‘Core’ or ‘Kore’, a name for a type of ancient Greek female figure sculpture, ‘Kouros’ being its male counterpart. This attribution to nature and the figure was not unusual for Hepworth, with many of her most successful works exploring the relationships between the figure and landscape, as seen here. The abstract form of Coré loosely emulates that of a figure, with its vertical upright form and soft undulating curves relating to the Archaic figures she saw there, the concave circle and crescent seen as signifiers of a face. Hepworth tried to recapture the experience of continuity between her body and the natural environment, emphasising her insistence of the formal harmony between the art object and its surroundings. This is evoked in the weightiness of the piece, which grounds it to the earth and conjures up images of the Cornish landscape, where she had her studio from 1949, and where rock and cliffs rise up out of the land and sea.
There is equilibrium imbued within Coré: the density of the work balanced by its curved organic form and the choice of a dark grey patina, which harmonises the piece within the landscape. Hepworth reiterated the importance of nature as a source of inspiration in an interview for Unit One in 1934, she retorts, ‘in the contemplation of Nature we are perpetually renewed, our sense of mystery and our imagination is kept alive, and rightly understood, it gives us the power to project into a plastic medium some universal or abstract version of beauty’ (M. Gale and C. Stephens, Barbara Hepworth Works in the Tate Gallery Collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum St Ives, London, 1999, p. 16).
Other casts are in the Barbara Hepworth Museum, Tate, St Ives (1/7); and Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (4/7).