Barbara Hepworth with her cat Nicholas and her sculpture 'Reclining Form (Rosewall)'

1 portrait of Barbara Hepworth

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Barbara Hepworth with her cat Nicholas and her sculpture 'Reclining Form (Rosewall)'

by Ida Kar
2 1/4 inch square film negative, 1961
Purchased, 1999
Photographs Collection
NPG x31619

Sitterback to top

  • Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975), Sculptor; second wife of Ben Nicholson. Sitter in 31 portraits, Artist or producer of 1 portrait.

Artistback to top

  • Ida Kar (1908-1974), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 1567 portraits, Sitter in 137 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Gibson, Robin, The Face in the Corner: Animal Portraits from the Collections of the National Portrait Gallery, 1998, p. 84
  • Robin Gibson, Pets in Portraits, 2015, p. 120 Read entry

    By the time the Russian-born photographer Ida Kar went down to St Ives to photograph Barbara Hepworth in her studio, the sculptress was already a figure of more than national significance. Her work had been included in the 1951 Venice Biennale and had also figured prominently in the Festival of Britain the same year. In 1952 a monograph with an introduction by her friend Sir Herbert Read had been published, and she had made a considerable impression as a stage designer for Electra at the Old Vic. A major 1954 retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in London did much to consolidate her reputation.

    Hepworth had moved to St Ives in 1939 and finally settled at Trewyn Studio in 1951 after her divorce from the painter Ben Nicholson. The photograph shows her in the carving yard with the sculpture ‘Curved Reclining Form, (Rosewall)’, named after the hill outside St Ives from which she had conceived the work. It was purchased in 1962 for a piazza in a draughty civic development by the post office in Chesterfield.

    With her children now grown up, and living on her own at the studio, cats seem to have played an increasingly important part in Barbara Hepworth’s life. Three of them, Nicholas, Mimi and Tobey, are represented by their own photographs in her A Pictorial Autobiography, first published in 1970. A slightly overweight Nicholas, who was clearly a feature of studio life in the 1950s and early 1960s, is seen here making a surreptitious bid for inclusion in the limelight, and he appears again in a photograph of the finished sculpture in the garden at Trewyn.

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Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1961back to top

Current affairs

Peter Benenson's article The Forgotten Prisoners is published internationally, inspiring the founding of the human rights organisation, Amnesty International.
The philosopher and peace activist Bertrand Russell is imprisoned for inciting civil disobedience during a sit down demonstration at the Ministry of Defence and Hyde Park.
The farthing coin - used in Britain for the last 7 centuries - ceases to be legal tender.

Art and science

Rudolf Nureyev defects from the USSR fearing that the KGB would arrest him for being gay and for fraternising with foreigners. After seeking asylum in Paris he set up home in London at the Royal Ballet and began his famous partnership with Margot Fonteyn.
The satirical magazine, Private Eye is first published.

International

The East German government erects the Berlin Wall, ceasing free movement between East and West Berlin. The barrier prevented citizens of Soviet controlled East Germany from crossing the border into West Germany to work, or to defect.
Yuri Gagarin, the soviet cosmonaut, becomes the first man in space orbiting the earth on the 12th April.

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