The Hepworth Estate, and thence by descent
Acquired by a Private Collection through the New Art Centre in 2003

London, Marlborough Galleries, Recent Acquisitions, July 1967, cat. no.9 (another cast);
London, Tate, Barbara Hepworth, 3rd April - 19th May 1968, cat. no.179 (as Sphere with Inside and Outisde Colour) (another cast):
London, Marlborough Gallery, Barbara Hepworth, 1970, cat. no.9 (another cast);
New York, Marlborough Gallery, Barbara Hepworth, Carvings and Bronzes, May - June 1979, cat. no.29, illustrated;
Liverpool, Tate, Barbara Hepworth, A Retrospective, 14th September - 4th December 1994, cat. no.75 (another cast), illustrated, with tour to Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven and Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

Alan Bowness (ed.), The Complete Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth, 1960-69, Lund Humphries, London, 1971, cat. no.445, p.45;
A.M. Hammacher, Barbara Hepworth, Thames & Hudson, London, 1987, p.189, illustrated pl.169 (another cast); 
Alan Wilkinson, 'Within the Landscape,' published to coincide with the exhibition, Graham Murrell: Twelve Months, 12th September - 14th November 2004, New Art Centre, Sculpture Park & Gallery, illustrated pl.22.

 

The work is slightly loose on the wooden base, but is otherwise structurally sound. There is minor surface dirt and dust, with very minor scratches to the painted, coloured surfaces, including a small scratch to the lower outside of the red and black plate. This excepting the work appears to be in very good overall condition. Housed on a black-painted wooden base, with minor scuffs in isolated places. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

We are grateful to Dr. Sophie Bowness for her kind assistance with the cataloguing apparatus for present work, which will feature in her forthcoming revised catalogue raisonné of the Artist's sculpture as catalogue number BH445.

The present work, conceived in 1967, is a smaller version of the larger sculpture, Sphere with Inside and Outside Colour (BH444) of which only one edition was made which subsequently rusted and was destroyed.  In 1972 Hepworth was invited by Sam Wanamaker to create a suitable work for the Globe Playhouse Trust and based her design on Sphere with Inside and Outside Colour, naming the 1972 work  Sphere (BH561).  The first cast from Sphere is currently on display at the Globe Thea🌠tre, London.

Sphere with Inside and Outside Colour is a rare and carefully calibrated construction in which Hepworth chooses to use moving painted aluminium parts in her investigation into the relationship between the inside and outside of forms. The spaces between the curved strips of polished aluminium can be altered, enabling Hepworth to investigate the meaning and tensions between the positive and negative spaces in the work. Furthermore, she experiments with the changing effects of the boldly coloured segments on both the internal space of the sphere and the external form of the sculpture. There are possible signs in this work of the earlier influences of her friends Naum Gabo (in the construction) and Piet Mondrian (in the deployment of colour).  The sculpture bares a similarity to the prototype for Construction (Crucifixion) (BH 443, Hepworth, Wakefield) created a couple of years later i🀅n 1966-1967 in the use of🥂 aluminium and the colour scheme employed.

`There is an inside and an outside to every form.  When they are in special accord ... then I am most drawn to the effect of light. Every shadow cast by the sun from an ever-varying angle reveals the harmony of the inside to outside.  Light gives full play to our tactile perceptions through the experience of our eyes, and the vitality of forms is revealed by the interplay between space and volume’ (The Artist, quoted in Herbert Read, Barbara Hepworth: Carvings and Drawings, 1952, first chapter, unpaginated).