Pas de Deux : A Dance of ‘Art & Life’ -

BARBARA HEPWORTH AT FONDATION MAEGHT

The exhibition ‘Art & Life’ at Fondation Maeght commences without the conviviality of a raised curtain, the spine-tingling sound of an orchestra tuning or even a resounding applause at its close. Yet this special exhibition of the work of Barbara Hepworth feels like a performance. One wherein the audience themselves move across the stage between elegant performers of poise, balance and energy.

From a portrait of Hepworth painted by Ethel Walker to some of her most celebrated pieces, many of the artworks in this show are on loan from the Hepworth Wakefield and private individuals. Curated by Eleanor Clayton, this well-presented display demonstrates how Hepworth was inspired by life events, her surroundings and deep respect for ancient history.

Located in sunny St-Paul-de-Vence – a stone’s throw from the Matisse Chapel and well-appointed La Colombe d’Or – Fondation Maeght first exhibited Hepworth’s sculpture as part of ‘Ten Years of Living Art 1955 – 1965’, presenting ‘Two Forms in Echelon’ (1961) and ‘Figure (Walnut)’ (1964). Hepworth donated the latter sculpture to the foundation, its oval form and highly polished finish now a highlight in this current exhibit.

STAGE SET : AN ARCHITECTURAL BACKDROP

Fondation Maeght was completed in 1964 to Josep Lluís Sert’s design. Just like his later 1975 project, the Miró Foundation in Barcelona, this architectural masterpiece is completely in tune – in quick-step – with the artworks displayed upon its Mediterranean-warmed walls and balmy terracotta floors.

Slivers of water dotted throughout the interconnecting gallery spaces reflect majestic pine trees above. Sky-high, their bushy green needles seem almost cloud-like in these minty reflections. The gentle chirp of cicadas mimics the rustle of programmes in this, the domain of the ‘upper circle’.

And then the prelude, the opening scene. Giacometti’s make their sinewy presence known upon the open-air stage just beyond the foundation’s glass-trimmed entrance foyer. There is something of the feel of a Greek amphitheatre about the way the architecture frames and melds around the artwork.

Meanwhile, each vaulted gallery ceiling of elegant white half-domes gives the impression of spotlights and follows the lead of Hepworth’s curvaceous forms. These semi-domes not only recall sun bleached cupolas atop salt sprayed chapels in Greece (Hepworth visited Greece twice during her lifetime) but from the outside conjure the impression of funnels on a steam ship. A backdrop then for ‘Anything Goes’ or even ‘Sailor Beware!’. One moment we are sailing westwards in the Atlantic, the next looking to dock in St Ives, Cornwall.

Beneath these unforgettable roof-top sails – concrete appears to billow as though the whole building is being swiftly pulled along by a trade wind – the gardens of Fondation Maeght spread out like a promenade deck. Complete with café and shaded seating areas, there is also a chapel boasting some of the most sophisticated Stations of the Cross and a dazzling stained-glass window by Raoul Ubac. Whether you do imagine yourself out at sea or feel reassuringly tucked up in Colline des Gardettes, this stage set fosters the mood for clarity of thought, freedom of feeling and focus for looking.

Up in the shadows cast by these impressive sail-like forms a panoramic view – so entirely different to Hepworth’s native Yorkshire and beloved Penwith – evaporates in a haze of heat. Not just the most divine location for an art foundation but entirely part of the viewing experience. These curving whitewashed parabolas are performers too in the choreography of this sculptural spectacle.

Fondation Maeght is therefore a harmonious setting from which to stage this comprehensive exhibition. Greeted with a larger-than-life portrait of the artist (not too dissimilar from billboards of movie stars or their likeness as cardboard-cut outs) we can sense Hepworth’s keen eye – her look for tone, form and line – and imagine the feel of the sculptor’s hands which gave life and movement, dance, to stone.

MOVEMENT & MEANING

As we wind ourselves around each sculpture their arrangement leads us in an improvised pattern of ‘enchaînement’ steps. A fluid trail instigated by the curvature and very loops of Hepworth’s creations. Between this well-toned troupe of stretching, turning, leaping principles and chorus members, we the audience are privileged to participate through the act of looking.

More than just a biographical account or a survey of Hepworth’s artistic finesse, this exhibit tells the story between artistic practice and the artist’s life. We watch as the two blur and morph into one, a fine pas de deux of dizzying complexity.

CURVES OF RENEWAL

The show really gets going after Hepworth’s early experiments. We find her in her stride by the time we sashay towards the juggernaut ‘Corinthus’. Information panels (which take on the role of Narrator throughout the entirety of this ensemble) inform us that this heavyweight player was made following the death of Hepworth’s eldest son Paul in an air crash.

A lament for her son, ‘Corinthus’ possesses a dense volume like a gravitational force, sucking all air, light and emotion into its cavernous, carved-out heart. Evoking birth and death – the empty womb, the empty cradle and the spirit leaving the body – the work broods on the torment of tragedy and the cycle of life.

To overcome her grief, Hepworth visited Corinth in Greece where there is both a Roman amphitheatre and an ancient Greek theatre. Upon her return, Hepworth received a gift of enormous logs of Nigerian guarea from a friend. The resulting sculpture is a confluence of art and life. ‘Corinthus’ is a twisting, nebulous form where the artist’s sorrow meets the influence of deep history and traces of ancient civilisation.

Much later in 1970, Hepworth said :

‘My sculpture has often seemed to me

like offering a prayer at moments of great unhappiness.

Whenever there has been threat to life . . .

My reaction has been to swallow despair,

to make something that rises up,

something that will win.

In another age. . . .

I would simply have carved cathedrals.’

In the dance of art and life, ‘Corinthus’ affirms Hepworth’s early allegiance to Christian Science and her later Anglian beliefs. This sculpture is a living soloist, a performer fashioned from wood. A powerful, grounded and contained stance transcends the material world to that of the spirit, revealing the artist’s anguish.

OPEN LINES - TENSION & RELEASE

Transfixed, we almost fall headlong into the deep, limitless blue of ‘Sculpture With Colour’ (1940). The work’s hypnotic Azul shade is as electrifying as Yves Klein’s (1928 – 62) take on the cobalt blue Nicoise skies above and as divine as Giotto’s chapel of lapis lazuli.

Hepworth’s hue is heightened by the presence of dusky red strings. Reminiscent of diazomas these also serve to accentuate the sloping sides of the void within. The sculpture seems improbably, Tardis-like deep! Set at taught diagonals across the opening, Hepworth’s use of string alludes to musical instruments, from harps to cellos and guitars. She may also be referencing fishermen’s lines and lobster pots – once familiar sights along St Ives’ harbour – thus indicating the artist’s deep connection to her Cornish community. A factor which could have been explored further in the curative contextualisation of this exhibition.

The modest scale of works such as ‘Sculpture With Colour’ is due in part to the war and Hepworth’s domestic responsibilities as a mother to young triplets at the time. She was only able to work in the evenings, producing ‘child-friendly’ scale sculptures alongside numerous drawings. ‘Art & Life’ includes prints and drawings from this period to demonstrate how Hepworth explored complex forms in 2D on a flat surface. Several, such as ‘Forms (Brown, Grey and White)’ (1941) are soft and radiate a sense of delicacy, presented here as an adagio to counterbalance the virtuoso sculptural forms.

However, the candy-coloured screenprints installed upon the walls in the final gallery space are mostly a distraction from the real stars of the show. As flat and unflattering as the clog dance in ‘La Fille Mal Gardée’, these framed works do not attest to Hepworth’s great vision or sensitive materiality. In the context of this exhibition this range of lithographs from ‘Delos’ to ‘Cool Moon’ seem somewhat superfluous, like an over-use of stage props.

Following on from ‘Sculpture With Colour’ we observe how Hepworth’s integration of string develops across time and motifs. Costumes from ‘The Midsummer Marriage’ (premiered 1955) are presented as a suite of photographs and show the white lines like archer’s bows, recalling the structure of ladies’ Victorian hoop skirts or even the interior ‘string-scape’ of a piano.

We see how Hepworth’s lines develop into intricate networks in pieces such as the sublime ‘Orpheus (Maquette I)’ and ‘Stringed Figure (Curlew) (Maquette I)’, both from 1956. The eye refuses to rest on these criss-crossing vibrating lines; the sensitive form of a wing, a bird in flight, materialises. A swan about to leave the watery world to join its wedge up in the sphere of the sun and moon.

Like a ballet dancer en pointe, these strings are an attempt to defy the laws of physics. Just as dancers leap through the void of the air, a sensation of strain and pressure is induced and made visible by these criss-crossing tracks. Indeed, Hepworth explained that the addition of string represented

‘tension between myself and the sea,

the wind or the hills.

A connection between figure and landscape

and what happens when the two unite.’

The strings therefore tether Hepworth’s performers, pinning down her abstract forms like the Giant in ‘Gulliver’s Tales’. Even the coiling construction of ‘Curved Form (Wave II)’ is doubled over, steel rods suggesting both weightlessness and tensile strength. A breaking wave becomes a solid mass like the smooth hollow of a shell or deep cave.

THEATRICAL TONE

As the exhibition proceeds and we lose ourselves in each undulating form, void and pierced plane, we study Hepworth’s performers closely. The works seem to move before our very eyes. Energy becomes visible as abstract forms emerge not just from the block but from rhythmic, musical folds. We witness their contortions as though a celebrated Big Top circus legend; feats of flexibility; ‘impossible’ gravity-defying balance and superhuman endurance. Instead of spotting beads of perspiration rolling from the forehead, caked behind the veil of a made-up face, we spy instead indents of the chisel, the veins of marble and even a crack like a streak of lightening spears ‘Tides II’.

Highly influenced by dance, Hepworth took over the Palais de Danse in 1961. The site of the first cinema in St Ives, the building was once owned by William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley, husband of Britain’s wealthiest heiress. Within this luxury of space, complete with a stage and long mirror reflecting each sculpture, Hepworth could literally ‘dance’ her work around, each piece on wheels to perfect the formation. A dance of wood, stone, marble and bronze.

Much larger than her studio at Trewyn, the Palais de Danse enabled Hepworth to complete works such as her public commission ‘Winged Figure’ for the John Lewis Oxford Street store in London. The maquette for this is displayed as part of ‘Art & Life’ though it would have been more impactful if a photograph of the final version were readily accessible for audiences to study. Perhaps that is what is missing from this exhibit – a showstopper, a larger-than-life outdoor sculpture to firmly justify Hepworth’s legacy.

PERFORMATIVE QUALITY

We raise our eyes then to take in the leering form of ‘Torso I (Ulysses)’, one of the larger pieces in this show. Another connection to Greek classicism, it appears this work has been cast as the villain in this Act. The torso rises from its plinth as though a wavering ghost cast by a magic spell. Its bone-like hulk takes on the form of a blacksmith’s anvil, a Medieval artefact, or a primeval relic from a lost lair in the Dune franchise. Brooding over all, ‘Torso I (Ulysses)’ evokes the presence of Rothbart or Petipa’s Carabose. Complete with a hunchback-esque form, the surface of indents and pitted texture evokes volcanic pumice and may be considered akin to the warts and wrinkles of a classic stage ‘baddie’. A performative quality in striking contrast to Lluís Sert’s white arena.

‘Curved Forms (Pavan)’ from 1956 rests close by like a flower opening or a piece of bleached coral. A Sleeping Beauty. Yet movement resides; repeating curves and harmonic folds in frothy white spin out in swirling loops from the centrifuge, like Odette performing her breathtaking fouettés.

UNIVERSAL RHYTHMS & A CORNISH CODA

The show continues with ‘Singe Form (Chûn Quoit)’. Displayed against a backcloth of gently swaying plants in silhouette through a window, this sculpture evokes the Cornish landscape so influential for Hepworth’s practice and vision. The minimal oblong shape of this piece is a clear reference to the standing stones dotted throughout the southwest of England. Named after one of the best-preserved examples of Neolithic dolmens – the top ‘caps’ of the structure associated with a legend of giants playing quoits – this sculpture of guarded stillness resounds with the idea of a figure standing in a landscape.

‘Art & Life’ shows us how Hepworth was inspired by the first moon landing and advances in technology but it is works like ‘Chûn Quoit’ which echo her sentiment:

‘ A totem, a Talisman, a kind of touchstone

for all that is of lasting value . . .

Something that would be valid at any time,

or would have been 2,000 or even 20,000 years ago.’

‘Single Form (Chûn Quoit)’ confirms how the Cornish landscape, its history and spirit is inherent to Hepworth’s handiwork. Once again, perhaps it would have been helpful to include photographs of dolmens or standing stones for the benefit of international visitors.

The calm and mysterious presence of ‘Single Form (Chûn Quiot)’ is echoed by the little assembly ‘Three Magic Stones’. These not only relate to ‘Corinthus’ and the idea of motherhood – a stone for each of the artist’s triplets with Ben Nicholson – but again show how Hepworth would draw influence from Cornish tradition.

These curiously slanted cubic-flanked stones of silver seem of cosmic origin. Placed in a vitrine they become artefacts from another world with an inexplicable magic force. Indeed, their polished silver surfaces reflect each other for eternity, like an otherworldly epilogue to ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’. Alchemy is afoot. In a corner of England where folklore festivities are still celebrated; a land frequented by pirates, giants, and supposedly even King Arthur, a tale can be spun as to the mystical powers of these sacred charms. Is this piece evidence of a narrative behind all of the dancing dramatics?

A FITTING FINALE

In the closing scene ‘Sea Form (Porthmeor)’ makes its entrance. A fitting finale to this show prepositioned in the gentle hillside above Nice, the Cote d’Azur glinting in the distance. Rather like a piece of seaweed, this bronze looks about to dive in – we somehow believe it is sure to float! Gaping holes and curled edges recall organic strands of kelp, dried by the sun and wind, whether washed up along the Cornish tides or released from the Mediterranean’s ebb and flow.

Provence’s unmistakeable glow and Fondation Maeght’s proximity to the sea seem to rhyme with Hepworth’s working practice in St Ives. As she explained:

‘Every work in sculpture is …

either a figure I see, or a sensation I have,

whether in Yorkshire, Cornwall

or Greece, or the Mediterranean’.

Perhaps this is why this exhibition works so well. We feel the pull of the sea, the rush of the waves, perhaps even the cry of the seabirds and the sorcery of the stones – a universal connection to landscape.

Amidst turbulent times Hepworth’s primordial sculptures present a true escape from challenging events. ‘Art & Life’ is a unique opportunity to consider how the life of an artist is locked in a flowing waltz with Nature, death and ancient history. This exhibition is a dance, a swaying ring we can step into for an hour or two – a circular carole in the screeching square of unjust times.