BARBARA HEPWORTH

(1903-1975)

The Aegean Suite

Footnotes

Provenance
Christie's Contemporary Art, London, June 1976.
Acquired directly from the above, thence by descent to the present owner.

The Aegean Suite is one of only two major sets of lithographs completed by Barbara Hepworth during her lifetime. Although her graphic output was limited, she enjoyed printmaking as the intricacy of its layering process would allow her to develop ideas on space, abstraction, form and texture that she would later translate into her sculpture.

Hepworth had started work on the suite in 1970 in St Ives, Cornwall, and completed it with master printer Stanley Jones at the Curwen Studio in London the following year. The apparent ease with which she combines the drawn line and the lithographic wash is a testament to her skills and dedication to the medium.

The title and geometric forms choreographed across all nine works of the present set also convey the artist's fascination with the sites of antique Greece, while the abstracted suns and moons are reminiscent of her interest in the celestial; a theme she keenly explored in her graphic oeuvre.

This complete set with all nine works presented in their original frames was purchased from Christie's Contemporary Art exhibition in June 1976 and are offered alongside the Christie's original Certificates of Authenticity, a brochure printed in colours about the prints, a typed letter by David Case introducing the June 1976 collection and the exhibition pricelists.

The 1976 exhibition focused on Barbara Hepworth who had died the year before, presenting her alongside other contemporary printmakers, notably Julian Trevelyan and Dorothea Wight.

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