BARBARA HEPWORTH IN AMSTERDAM

Every year the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam features an exhibition, in their public gardens, of sculptures by a major international artist. This year the honour goes to Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975). 

Barbara Hepworth
Squares with Two Circles, 1963. Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo

Nine of her sculptures are on display, including Monolith (1953-4, from Kenwood House), Squares with Two Circles (1963, from the Kröller-Müller Museum, in the Netherlands, where she was given a solo show in 2016) and Construction, Crucifixion (1968 from Salisbury Cathedral, which references the visual idiom of Hepworth’s Dutch friend Piet Mondrian).

The show has been guest-curated by Hepworth’s granddaughter, the art historian Sophie Bowness.

Hepworth, of course, was one of the sculptural pioneers of British Modernism, whose piercing of holes in stone blocks became a signature trope, much imitated by other artists. The sculptor (she rejected the term ‘sculptress’), a prominent figure in the St Ives group, came to international prominence in 1959, when she was awarded the Grad Prix at the Sao Paolo Biennale. That reputation was enhanced in 1964, when her monumental Single Form was commissioned to stand in front of the United Nation building in New York.

Other recent sculptors to have been exhibited at the Netherland’s national art museum include Ellsworth Kelly (2021), Louise Bourgois (2019) and Eduardo Chillida (2018). This major retrospective opened on June 3 and will be on display until October 23.