Dame Barbara Hepworth

(British, 1903-1975)

Study for Group 42.8 x 28.3 cm. (16 7/8 x 11 1/8 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
With Lefevre Gallery, London
C.S Reddihough

Exhibited
London, Lefevre Gallery, Paintings by Barbara Hepworth, Paintings by L.S. Lowry, April 1948, cat.no.4
Wakefield, The Hepworth Wakefield, Barbara Hepworth, The Hospital Drawings, 27 October-3 February 2013, cat.no.3; this exhibition travelled to Chichester, Pallant House Gallery, 16 February-2 June and Kent, Mascalls Gallery, 14 June-24 August

Literature
Nathaniel Hepburn, Barbara Hepworth, The Hospital Drawings, Tate Publishing, London, 2012, p.124 (col.ill. p.54)

By the end of the 1940s Barbara Hepworth had already made a name for herself as an accomplished sculptor, but expensive materials such as marble were scarce. So between 1947 and 1949, she grabbed her sketchbook and went on to produce around eighty works of surgeons in operating theatres. And it's this series of so called 'hospital drawings' (although by using oil as well as pencil they can be seen as paintings) that clearly demonstrate her extraordinary talent as a draughtsman also.

This new direction stemmed from a friendship she had established with a local surgeon, Norman Capener, following an operation he performed on her daughter Sarah. She was invited to observe procedures being carried out in both Exeter and London and the result is this group of remarkably poignant works. She recognised an affinity between the craftsmanship of a surgeon and that of the artist and this is clear to see in works such as Study for Group where she has focussed on their shared physical attributes of skilfulness – the eyes and hands. This is a feature of the series as a whole but most works show the figures hidden behind their surgical masks. In the present example however, there is just the mere suggestion of masks, delineated through several feint pencil lines. By revealing the surgeons kindly facial features, the artist succeeds in giving the scene added pathos.

It has also been said that there is a quasi-religious feel to these works, similar to the piety observed by Renaissance painters such as Piero della Francesca. The present work is imbued with this quiet formality, one surgeon helping the other into their gown, working in hushed unison with downcast eyes full of compassion and fingers adeptly gripping the surgical thread, ready for action.