LONDON.- The Courtauld Gallery presents the first exhibition devoted to Barbara Hepworth’s lifelong fascination with colour, shedding light on an unexpected and unexplored aspect of the work of one of the most celebrated British artists of the 20th century.
Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) is best known for her abstract sculptures inspired by nature and the rugged seaside landscapes of Cornwall, where she lived and worked from 1939. Hepworth’s practice is often characterised in terms of her commitment to direct carving and ‘truth to materials’. Little attention has been given to the importance of colour in her work. Discussing her innovative use of colour in 1970, she said: “my colour has been accepted, but never understood.”
Bringing together 18 sculptures and 26 drawings and paintings, The Joseph Hage Aaronson & Bremen Exhibition: Hepworth in Colour is the first exhibition to focus on this important but often overlooked aspect of Hepworth’s work.
Hepworth’s early interest in painted colour dates to the mid-1930s when she and her future husband, Ben Nicholson, formed part of the European avant-garde. In 1939, just before outbreak of the Second World War, she left London for Cornwall with her three young children, taking with her a single sculpture – her very first study for a sculpture with colour. Over the following years, the landscape of Cornwall inspired Hepworth to develop this initial experiment, moving her work in new directions and establishing a lifelong fascination with colour. At the heart of the exhibition is the remarkable group of painted sculptures made between 1940 and 1948. Hepworth later recalled how, “I used colour and strings in many of the carvings of this time. The colour in the concavities plunged me into the depths of water, caves or shallows…”. These early works include the boldly painted stone carvings Eidos (1947-8) from the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia and Sculpture with Colour (Eos) (1946) from a private collection in Hong Kong. They are exhibited together in the UK for the first time since 1954.
A major highlight of the exhibition is the painted wood carving, Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form), Pale Blue and Red, of 1943, which was acquired by The Hepworth Wakefield in 2025 following the successful national fundraising campaign in collaboration with Art Fund to raise £3.8 million. Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form), Pale Blue and Red marked a breakthrough moment in Hepworth’s career, combining strings and colour and, for the first time, the beautiful pale blue, which she associated with the Cornish skies and coast. In private hands since it was created, and rarely exhibited, this is the first time the sculpture is displayed in London since it was acquired for the nation. For Hepworth, the strings in her early sculptures “were the tension I felt between myself and the sea, the wind or the hill”.
Other iconic painted stringed sculptures in the exhibition include Wave, 1943-44, from the National Galleries of Scotland and Pelagos (‘sea’ in Greek), 1946 from Tate, the latter directly inspired by the sculptor’s view from her studio onto the bay in St Ives in Cornwall. The exhibition also unites for the first time from private and public collections the six versions of Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red), made between 1940 and 1943, featuring contrasting red strings hovering over a striking blue interior.
Alongside sculptures, the exhibition features a rich selection of Hepworth’s drawings with colour. During the first years of the war Hepworth lacked the materials, studio space and time to produce much sculpture but her drawings allowed her to continue to explore and develop her ideas. She recalled, “In the late evenings, and during the night I did innumerable drawings…exploring the particular tensions and relationships of form and colour which were to occupy me in sculpture during the later years of the war.” These drawings, usually entitled “drawing for sculpture” are remarkable for their intricate crystalline forms, punctuated with strong blues, reds and greens.
The exhibition extends into the 1950s and 1960s to reflect how colour continued to occupy Hepworth in new and innovative ways, including in her expressive paintings, and in her work with patinated bronze and coloured marble.
The Joseph Hage Aaronson & Bremen Exhibition: Hepworth in Colour is curated by Dr Alexandra Gerstein, Curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Courtauld Gallery and Dr Stephen Feeke, independent writer and curator whose PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art focused on Barbara Hepworth’s bronze sculptures.
To coincide with the exhibition, a display of rare photographs, taken in the 1930s by Paul Laib (1932–1936), capturing Hepworth and Ben Nicholson (1894–1982) in their shared studio in Hampstead, London, is being presented in the Project Space. These are among the most evocative studio images to emerge in Britain during the 20th century and show the fascinating interrelation of their practices at this time.
The Joseph Hage Aaronson & Bremen Exhibition: Hepworth in Colour is accompanied by a new catalogue, edited by Dr Alexandra Gerstein, Curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Courtauld Gallery and Dr Stephen Feeke, independent art historian and Hepworth specialist, with contributions by Alexandra Gerstein, Stephen Feeke, David Batchelor, Eleanor Clayton, Kirstie Dootson and Kate Edmondson.
