Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) played an important part in the development of nonobjective art-especially sculpture-in Britain. Although she enjoyed nature and was inspired by it, her work is entirely abstract. Hepworth used a technique called direct carving, which was out of style 'at the time. That means she made a model of her idea for a sculpture, then carved it directly into wood or stone.
Already a successful artist, Hepworth married Ben Nicholson, one of England's best abstract painters. Along with their close friend Henry Moore, they were central figures in the world of British abstract art in the 1930s. Hepworth concentrated on the counterplay between form and space in sculpture. In 1931, with a piece called "Pierced Form,
9 @ she first introduced the idea of the "hole": Hepworth showed the relationship between outside and inside, making space become a significant part of the sculpture itself-not just the setting in which a hole existed. Henry Moore used her idea in almost all of his later sculptures.By the 1950s, Hepworth was an internationally famous sculptor. She received many honors and important commissions. By then she also worked in cast bronze. Still, she always preferred direct carving of abstract forms. As Barbara Hepworth said, "I do not want to make a stone horse that is trying to and cannot smell the air ... but to make exactly the right relation of masses, a living thing in stone, to express my awareness and thought of these things."
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