Two forms

When asked how she approached the challenge of carving new stone, Dame Barbara Hepworth replied: ``First of all I prowl as usual, and then I try a bit and work it, and bring it to a polish and consider it. There are certain things I don't like. I don't like anything too heavily marked, or mottled, and anything pink drives me mad....'' Raised and educated in England, Hepworth moved to the countryside of Cornwall during the late 1930s. She found tremendous inspiration in the rugged Cornish landscape and open sea. And it was at this time that she gained international recognition.

She believed that sculpture could be ``a thing of joy, not just a memorial on a plinth....'' In an essay written for The Christian Science Monitor in 1965, Barbara Hepworth wrote: ``I believe most strongly that any sculpture made now should be valid in its form and ideas a thousand years hence. A sculpture should be an act of praise, an enduring expression of the divine spirit.''