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Lot Essay
The Pavan (or Pavane) was a sixteenth century processional dance, which often opened ceremonial balls and was particularly well suited to the display of court costumes. The steps were both forwards and backwards and the dancers rose onto the balls of their feet and swayed from side to side. The slow and stately Pavane was usually followed by the more energetic Galliard, known to be popular with Queen Elizabeth I. It was an athletic dance which included leaps, jumps and hops.
'The hint of the dance is in so much of her work: sculpture raised on tiptoes. It is both elegiac and sensuous – a symbol of the human spirit uplifted, and provocative of a reaction. Analogies are with the tensions and litheness of the human body, not its bulk. It is on the alert rather than in repose' (E. Mullins, ‘Scale and Monumentality: Notes and Conversations on the Recent Work of Barbara Hepworth’, Sculpture International, no. 4, Oxford, 1967).
Dance was an enduring fascination for Hepworth. Notably, she sub-titled both works in her Forms in Movement series after these two dances. In the late 19th century the composers Fauré and Ravel had brought about a revival of the Pavane in classical music with their instrumental works and Hepworth would, almost certainly, have known of their works. She gave other sculptures musical subtitles, including Motet and Fugue, and from an early age had been interested in music. Her first memory, she later wrote, was ‘the incredible magic of a music box owned by the people next door’ and during childhood she took much pleasure in learning the piano. Beyond music, for Hepworth, were movement, rhythm and dance and their influence on the process of conceptualising works and even the physical process of carving: ‘I have always loved the joy of carving and the rhythm of movement that grows in the sculpture itself, just as I like dancing or skating. I like the relaxation of sound and movement’ (J. Read (Director), Barbara Hepworth, BBC TV, 1961).
Artworks are often described as having ‘movement’ even though they are static. Yet Forms in Movement (Pavan) is, as the title suggests, a work that appears to be in a dynamic state of flux. It is composed of three loops, which give the appearance of being a continuous swirling line, dancing like the aforementioned sixteenth century courtiers, rising on to the balls of their feet and then dropping back down.
In 1956, Hepworth was at the height of her fame internationally - in the wake of her representation of Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1950, and the major monograph of her work by Herbert Read published in 1952, alongside a retrospective exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1954. Working with new materials allowed her a greater ability to design new forms and to explore their interior spaces. Forms in Movement (Pavan) is a particularly interesting work because it was cast from a concrete mould based on an expanded aluminium structure, itself based on a copper work. It was, effectively, as the art critic Edwin Mullins described, a four-stage process. The initial work was made from flexible copper and titled Forms in Movement (Galliard), a reference, no doubt, to the greater flexibility required for this energetic dance. Subsequently a work was made from extruded aluminium and covered with plaster, the process being described as ‘metallised plaster’. The third process was the making of a slightly larger concrete version and, finally, an edition of seven bronzes was cast from this concrete mould. The artist’s copy of this casting is in the collection of the Tate, London.
The finished bronze retains an exceptional poise and rhythm, which encourages the viewer to explore its every angle. Hepworth certainly saw the viewer as the continuation of the dance of her works. Shortly before her death at her Cornwall studio in 1975, she told Cindy Nemser, ‘You can’t make a sculpture, in my opinion, without involving your body. You move and you feel and you breathe and you touch. The spectator is the same. His body is involved too. If it’s a sculpture he has to first of all sense gravity. He’s got two feet. Then he must walk and move and use his eyes and this is a great involvement. […] One is physically involved and this is sculpture. It’s rhythm and dance and everything. It’s to do with swimming and movement and air and sea and all our well-being […] Sculpture is involved in the body living in the spirit or the spirit living in the body, whichever way you like to put it’ (C. Nemser, interview with Barbara Hepworth, Art Talk: Conversations with 15 Woman Artists, New York, 1995, p. 21).
We are grateful to Dr Sophie Bowness for her assistance with the cataloguing apparatus for this work. Dr Sophie Bowness is preparing the revised catalogue raisonné of Hepworth’s sculpture.
'The hint of the dance is in so much of her work: sculpture raised on tiptoes. It is both elegiac and sensuous – a symbol of the human spirit uplifted, and provocative of a reaction. Analogies are with the tensions and litheness of the human body, not its bulk. It is on the alert rather than in repose' (E. Mullins, ‘Scale and Monumentality: Notes and Conversations on the Recent Work of Barbara Hepworth’, Sculpture International, no. 4, Oxford, 1967).
Dance was an enduring fascination for Hepworth. Notably, she sub-titled both works in her Forms in Movement series after these two dances. In the late 19th century the composers Fauré and Ravel had brought about a revival of the Pavane in classical music with their instrumental works and Hepworth would, almost certainly, have known of their works. She gave other sculptures musical subtitles, including Motet and Fugue, and from an early age had been interested in music. Her first memory, she later wrote, was ‘the incredible magic of a music box owned by the people next door’ and during childhood she took much pleasure in learning the piano. Beyond music, for Hepworth, were movement, rhythm and dance and their influence on the process of conceptualising works and even the physical process of carving: ‘I have always loved the joy of carving and the rhythm of movement that grows in the sculpture itself, just as I like dancing or skating. I like the relaxation of sound and movement’ (J. Read (Director), Barbara Hepworth, BBC TV, 1961).
Artworks are often described as having ‘movement’ even though they are static. Yet Forms in Movement (Pavan) is, as the title suggests, a work that appears to be in a dynamic state of flux. It is composed of three loops, which give the appearance of being a continuous swirling line, dancing like the aforementioned sixteenth century courtiers, rising on to the balls of their feet and then dropping back down.
In 1956, Hepworth was at the height of her fame internationally - in the wake of her representation of Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1950, and the major monograph of her work by Herbert Read published in 1952, alongside a retrospective exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1954. Working with new materials allowed her a greater ability to design new forms and to explore their interior spaces. Forms in Movement (Pavan) is a particularly interesting work because it was cast from a concrete mould based on an expanded aluminium structure, itself based on a copper work. It was, effectively, as the art critic Edwin Mullins described, a four-stage process. The initial work was made from flexible copper and titled Forms in Movement (Galliard), a reference, no doubt, to the greater flexibility required for this energetic dance. Subsequently a work was made from extruded aluminium and covered with plaster, the process being described as ‘metallised plaster’. The third process was the making of a slightly larger concrete version and, finally, an edition of seven bronzes was cast from this concrete mould. The artist’s copy of this casting is in the collection of the Tate, London.
The finished bronze retains an exceptional poise and rhythm, which encourages the viewer to explore its every angle. Hepworth certainly saw the viewer as the continuation of the dance of her works. Shortly before her death at her Cornwall studio in 1975, she told Cindy Nemser, ‘You can’t make a sculpture, in my opinion, without involving your body. You move and you feel and you breathe and you touch. The spectator is the same. His body is involved too. If it’s a sculpture he has to first of all sense gravity. He’s got two feet. Then he must walk and move and use his eyes and this is a great involvement. […] One is physically involved and this is sculpture. It’s rhythm and dance and everything. It’s to do with swimming and movement and air and sea and all our well-being […] Sculpture is involved in the body living in the spirit or the spirit living in the body, whichever way you like to put it’ (C. Nemser, interview with Barbara Hepworth, Art Talk: Conversations with 15 Woman Artists, New York, 1995, p. 21).
We are grateful to Dr Sophie Bowness for her assistance with the cataloguing apparatus for this work. Dr Sophie Bowness is preparing the revised catalogue raisonné of Hepworth’s sculpture.