The Barbara Hepworth Triptych

 

On seeing the “Family of Man” (1970) for the first time,

And, knowingly, meeting Barbara Hepworth for the first time,

On our sixtieth birthday.

 

Dedicated to  Barbara Hepworth, Sculptor; to the “Family of Man”; and to Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

 

Footnote No I

(For Footnotes Matter)

Hepworth’s nine bronze statues sit on the hillside of Yorkshire Sculpture Park: two ancestors, two youth, two parents, a wedding couple and one “Ultimate Form”[i].

 

 

Triptych I: The Hepworth Prologue

 

Rising, in order placed,

their holes let in the light[ii].

In their holes we see life from a different place,

and know it for the first time[iii].

 

How have we not met before?
Today I am sixty[iv]:

Why has it taken so long for you to find me?

 

Touch us.

You call.

Hold us.

Feel us.

Run your fingers round us.

 

We are cold.

Warm.

Rough.

Smooth.

We are Legion.

We are Bronze.

 

Look through our virgin holes.

Smell us.

We bronze.

 

Touch us.

Reach out to us.

Be held by us.

Our warm embrace.

Bronze.

 

Ignore the Chorus.

That official little sign.

Pegged in the ground.

That reads:

“ Do Not Touch”,

the Sculptures[v].

 

 

Triptych II: Bronze

 

Short people cannot see through all the holes.

Life is perspective.

It depends where you stand.

 

Seasons gleam.

Hepworth works.

Chisel in hand.

Glistening in the Springtime

Of our lives.

Moulding moulds.

In Summer’s glow.

Autumn glory.

Making holes.

In our lives.

Glimpse Winter grandeur.

Let the light

Into the deep warm hungry holes

of our heart’s landscape.

Touch bronze boundaries.

In the city,

Of our imagination.

 

See, over there.

Henry Moore.

Our friend,

In that field,

Among the sheep.

In grandeur sublime,

Scattered Giants, woven together.

In the landscape of our nation’s heart.

 

We stand.

We nine Sentinels,

Hepworth’s “Family of Man”.

We gather, quietly.

Tall, serried ranks.

Rising.

Walk, softly, among us.

From raw youth,

Up the Hill.

Past our Ancestors.

With us, by “Ultimate Form”,

Gaze, down the hill.

Through our enticing holes.

Purposeful, deep, from all time.

Solid formation.

Enigmatic function.

Contemplate mysterious holes.

Nesting,

In the hillside,

Of our lives.

 

We look at you.

You look at us.

Hepworth gifts us.

Chaotic order.

 

In the narrative arc,

Of language,

Transfigured by time,

Our name may date us.

A world, words, apart.

Today, we contend,

you would not call us,

By this name.

 

In seditious joy,

We look through your holes.

We put our arms and hands inside you.

We subvert the official instruction:

“Not to touch”.

Deep in our hearts

We hear Hepworth invite us:
“touch us,

reach out:

put your hand in our side,

Feel the joy, and the pain, of our holes”.

 

The Chorus:

that official little sign.

“Do Not Touch” 

the Sculptures.

Is this sign a faithful witness to Hepworth?

 

 

Triptych III: The Hepworth Epilogue

 

We are for all time.

We “The Family of Man”.

We embrace,

the deep ancient mystery,

of the Hepworth holes.

What would we be called today?

 

We are sculptures for all time,

And for all people.

The holes let in the light.

And bid everyone welcome.

 

You thought you had not met Hepworth.

But you have.

Many years ago.

On the side of the John Lewis store.

At No 300 Oxford Street, London, W1C 1DX.[vi]

 

If architecture is the “Mother of art”[vii],

Then Hepworth’s chisel is cousin,

To our pencil.

Our Ancestors,

Moulded in molten bronze,

Are Legion.

They are all humanity.

 

From the hilltop,

By “Ultimate Form”[viii].

Through the holes,

We see the lines.

Walking up and down,

the hills,

of our lives.

Horizontal. Vertical.

Chiselled.

Filling molten.

The mould,

of the city in our imagination.

Bronze.

 

 

Copyright

© Lottie E. Allen

 

The Feast of St Dunstan

19 May

In the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Three

 

Footnotes

 

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[i] Hepworth’s nine bronze statues sit on the hillside of Yorkshire Sculpture Park: two ancestors, two youth, two parents, a wedding couple and one “Ultimate Form”.

[ii] Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore both broke innovative ground by making holes in their work. We note, in this, that the man gets more credit than the woman.

[iii] In ascending order:

I              Young Girl

II             Youth

III           Bride

IV           Parent II

V             Parent I

VI           Bridegroom

VII          Ancestor II

VIII         Ancestor I

IX            “Ultimate Form”.

[iv] I first saw “The Family of Man” on my sixtieth birthday.

[v] Mullins (1972) wrote that “During [Hepworth’s] retrospective exhibition at the Tate Gallery in 1968 she insisted, to the consternation of well trained gallery officials, that spectators be permitted to stroke her work. And since she was a Trustee of the Tate she got her way”.

“Norman Reid, Director of the Tate Gallery, clarified the gallery’s policy of allowing visitors to the exhibition to touch the bronzes but not the carvings in a letter to The Times of 20 April 1968”.

In Bowness, S. (ed. 2015) Barbara Hepworth Writings and Conversations. London. Tate Publishing. pp. 248-250. Mullins, E. (7 April 1972) Barbara Hepworth’s “Family”. London. Daily Telegraph Magazine.

[vi] Hepworth. “Winged figure” (1962).

[vii] Hegel, G.W.F. (1975). Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art. Translated from the German by T.M. Knox, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Volume I, p.89.

[viii] The ninth bronze member of Hepworth’s collection, which sits resplendent and triumphant, at the top of the hill in Yorkshire Sculptor Park.