Rare Dame Barbara Hepworth sculpture fetches over £6m at auction
The sculpture was expected to sell for between £5m and £8m at Christie’s
A rare Dame Barbara Hepworth sculpture has fetched £6.19m at auction.
The 1946 piece, titled Sculpture with Colour (Eos), was expected to sell for between £5m and £8m at the Christie's auction house modern British and Irish art sale earlier this week.
Born in Wakefield in January 1903, Dame Barbara studied at Leeds School of Art before going on to become one of the 20th century's defining figures in modern sculpture.
Wakefield’s art gallery is named in her honour and remains free to visit for residents.
Sculpted from a single block of pale Hopton Wood stone, the artwork rises from its base in an organic ovoid form balanced on its narrowest point. Christie’s noted that it exemplifies the artist’s commitment to "truth to materials" and direct carving, created solely with tools she handled herself.
Taking its name from Eos, the Greek goddess of dawn, the swelling piece "suggests emergence, awakening and renewal: a new world coming into being", according to the auction house. Its exterior features three hollows finished with paint in pure white, subtle pale grey, and deep, rich blue.
The carving is one of just three known coloured stone works created by Dame Barbara in 1946. That same year, it appeared in a photograph of the artist captured by Lee Miller for Vogue, and it was recently showcased in the Hepworth in Colour exhibition at London's Courtauld Gallery.
The work was made after she relocated to Carbis Bay, near St Ives in Cornwall, at the start of the Second World War.
Christie’s said the sculptor "immersed herself in the coastal landscape, absorbing impressions of the play of light across the water, as well as the natural, organic forms of cliffs, sea arches and ancient monuments that she discovered there". The auctioneer added that the setting "strongly influenced" her artistic output.
Dame Barbara Hepworth died aged 72 in an accidental fire at her studio in 1975. Wakefield’s art gallery is named after her. It is free for Wakefield District residents.