Alex. Reid & Lefevre Ltd, London, where acquired by Countess Manassei, and thence by descent to the previous owner
Sale, Christie's London, 30th May 1997, lot 55, where acquired by the present owner

London, Alex. Reid & Lefevre Ltd, New Sculpture and Drawings by Barbara Hepworth, February 1950, cat. no.39;
Venice Biennale, British Council, British Pavilion, Barbara Hepworth, Sculpture and Drawings, June 1950, cat. no.117;
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Barbara Hepworth: a Retrospective Exhibition of Carvings and Drawings from 1927 to 1954, 8th April - 6th June 1954, cat. no.139.

Herbert Read, Barbara Hepworth, Carvings and Drawings, Lund Humphries, London, 1952, illustrated pl.124b;
Alan Wilkinson, The Drawings of Barbara Hepworth, Lund Humphries, Farnham, 2015, illustrated fig.91, p.98;
Penelope Curtis and Chris Stephens (eds.), Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture for a Modern World (exh. cat.), Tate Publishing, London, 2015, p.76. 

The sheet has been fully laid down on the Artist's board. The board appears to be very slightly bowed, but otherwise appears sound. There are some minor and old nicks and nips to the extreme edges of the sheet, most likely due to previous framing. There is some extremely faint craquelure apparent towards the right vertical edge, only visible upon very close inspection. There is some light surface dirt and studio detritus in places. Subject to the above, the work appears to be in very good overall condition. The work is presented in a painted wooden frame, held under glass. 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 the present work.

‘Periods and phases of drawing are mo🉐st important. One needs to record, endlessly, one’s observations of the human form, and of nature. It is from these sources that my forms derive. I often involve myself in periods of drawing from life, especially when I find a model that excites me. The impulses of human life and of nature absorb me.’

(The Artist, quoted in Mervyn Levy, ‘Impulse and Rhythm: The Artist at Work’, Studio, Vol.164, no.833, September 1962, pp.88-9, quoted in Alan Wilkinson, The Drawings of Barbara Hepworth, Lund Humphries, Farnham, 2015, p.90).

 

For Hepworth the correlation between the human figure and the landscape was important, and, as obvious as this dialogue was within her sculpture, so too can we see the direct links forged within her paintings and drawings. Hepworth focused on two dimensional works following her move to St Ives with her then husband Ben Nicholson in 1939, but had made a series of figure studies as early as the 1920s. These early life studies bear strong similarities to those being produced by contemporaries such as Henry Moore, and paved the way for the series of Figure Drawings she produced between 1947-51, of which the present work is an important example. By this period her handling of the human form is confident and refined, using dancers as models as she was inspired by their poise and energy, later recalling how she would ‘usually get dancers as models and ask them to move about, to limber up, to relax and to move and move until I know them all the way round. I become the model and the drawing becomes me’ (The Artist, quoted in Alan Bowness, Barbara Hepworth: Drawings from a Sculptor’s Landscape, Adams & Mackay, London, 1966, p.12, quoted in Alan Wilkinson, The Drawings of Barbara Hepworth, Lund Humphries, Farnham, 2015, p.90).

In these works Hepworth’s execution is similar to that of her hospital drawings of 1947-9, creating a beautifully textured surface with a combination of pencil and oil over a gesso-prepared and worked sheet. Hepworth often painted two different perspectives of the same model in works such as The Two Heads of Lisa (Mauve) (1949, Private Collection, sold in these rooms 13^th November 2012, lot 25). Working the physical surface, Hepworth scraped the paper with colour before rubbing it back to leave just a faint ghost of the hue over which she built the forms and gentle curves with a network of confidently executed pencil strokes. Close attention is paid to the🧸 way in which the light falls over the form, with the delicate cross-hatching shadow pooling in the small of her back and the inside of her arm.

These drawings and paintings formed an important aspect of Hepworth’s oeuvre, and played a prominent position within her inclusion in the 1950 Venice Biennale, where she showed alongside other international heavyweights such as Picasso, Braque, Gris and Léger, as well as British artists Matthew Smith and John Constable. The paintings Hepworth included varied from these more figurative studies (including the present work) to purely abstract works such as Forms in Movement (Circle) (sold for £257,000 in these rooms, 17^th November 2015; a record for a painting or drawing by Hepworth at auction). Also included in the Biennale was Three Groups on a Pink Ground (1949, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh), which features three couples together. Together with the present work these paintings emphasise the close links between form and line, so important to both her two and three dimensional works, as one has only to look at her sculptures of the period, including Group I (concourse) (1951) and Bicentric Form (1949) (both �🧸�Tate, London) to appreciate this aesthetic dialogue.