Two curved forms on a grey ground

Details

Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975)
Two curved forms on a grey ground
signed and dated 'Barbara Hepworth 1947' (lower right)
pencil and oil on canvas laid on board
12 x 16 in. (30.5 x 40.6 cm.)

Provenance

with Martha Jackson Gallery, New York.
Sam and Ayala Zacks, Toronto.
Auction for the Israel Relief Fund organized by Ayala Zacks, Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto, 27 June 1967, lot 28, where purchased by Anne L. Mirvish, and by descent.

Literature

H. Read (intro.), Barbara Hepworth: Carvings and Drawings, London, 1952, no. 94b, illustrated.

Exhibited

London, Lefevre Gallery, Paintings by Barbara Hepworth, Paintings by L.S. Lowry, April 1948, probably no. 60, as 'Two sculptures round and long'.
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Barbara Hepworth: a retrospective exhibition of carvings and drawings from 1927 to 1954, April - June 1954, no. 105.
Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Barbara Hepworth: Carvings and Drawings 1937-1954, April - May 1955, no. 19: this exhibition travelled to Nebraska, University of Nebraska Art Galleries, June - August 1955; San Francisco, Museum of Art, September - October 1955; Buffalo, Albright Art Gallery, November - December 1955; Toronto, Art Gallery of Toronto, January - February 1956; Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts, March 1956; Baltimore, Museum of Art, April - June 1956; and New York, Martha Jackson Gallery, December 1956 - January 1957.

Special Notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent. These lots have been imported from outside the EU for sale using a Temporary Import regime. Import VAT is payable (at 5%) on the Hammer price. VAT is also payable (at 20%) on the buyer’s Premium on a VAT inclusive basis. When a buyer of such a lot has registered an EU address but wishes to export the lot or complete the import into another EU country, he must advise Christie's immediately after the auction.

Lot Essay

‘Abstract drawing has always been for me a particularly exciting adventure. First there is only one’s mood; then the surface takes one’s mood in colour and texture; then a line or curve which, made with a pencil on the hard surface of many coats of oil or gouache, has a particular kind of “bite” rather like incising on slate; then one is lost in a new world of a thousand possibilities because the next line in association with the first will have a compulsion about it which will carry one forward into completely unknown territory. […] Suddenly before one’s eyes is a new form which, from the sculptor’s point of view, free as it is from the problems of solid material, can be deepened or extended, twisted or flattened, tightened and hardened according to one’s will, as one imbues it with its own special life. The whole process is opposite to that of drawing from life.’ (quoted in A. Bowness, Barbara Hepworth, Drawings from a Sculptor’s Landscape, London, 1966, pp. 19-20).

We are very grateful to Dr Sophie Bowness for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.

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