The Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden in St Ives, Cornwall preserves the 20th century sculptor Barbara Hepworth's studio and garden much as they were when she lived and worked there.
History
The studio, known as Trewyn Studio, was purchased by Barbara Hepworth in 1949, and is typical of the stone-built houses in St Ives. Her living room is furnished as she left it, while the workshop remains full of her tools and equipment, materials, and part-worked pieces.
The sculptures featured at the museum (mainly in the secluded garden) were some of her favourites. Her workshop also includes a queue of uncut stones that one visitor has described as "still waiting for their moment in the shadow of her workshop".
Barbara Hepworth died in a fire at this site in 1975, when she was aged 72.
The museum is managed by the Tate gallery.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Hepworth_Museum
Overview
Visiting the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden is a unique experience, offering a remarkable insight into the work and outlook of one of Britain's most important twentieth century artists. Sculptures in bronze, stone and wood are on display in the Museum and Garden, along with paintings, drawings and archive material.
Barbara Hepworth first came to live in Cornwall with her husband Ben Nicholson and their young family at the outbreak of war in 1939. She lived and worked in Trewyn studios, now the Hepworth Museum, from 1949 until her death in 1975. Following her wish to establish her home and studio as a museum of her work, Trewyn Studio and much of the artist's work remaining there was given to the nation and placed in the care of the Tate Gallery in 1980.
'Finding Trewyn Studio was a sort of magic', wrote Barbara Hepworth; 'here was a studio, a yard and garden where I could work in open air and space'. When she first arrived at Trewyn Studio, Hepworth was still largely preoccupied with stone and wood carving, but during the 1950s she increasingly made sculpture in bronze as well. This led her to create works on a more monumental scale, for which she used the garden as a viewing area. The bronzes now in the garden are seen in the environment for which they were created, and most are in the positions in which the artist herself placed them. The garden itself was laid out by Barbara Hepworth with help from a friend, the composer Priaulx Rainier.
www.tate.org.uk/stives/hepworth/
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Barbara Hepworth came to Cornwall with her husband, Ben Nicholson, in 1939. She worked here at Trewyn Studios, (since 1980 the Tate-run Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden), from 1949 untill her death in 1975, She used the garden as a viewing area for her monumental bronze pieces, many of which occupy positions in which she herself placed them.
The work you are standing virtually in the middle of, Conversation with Magic Stones, consists of six bronze forms - three 'stones' and three taller 'figures' and was made in 1973.
The garden is Barbara Hepworth's own creation, filled with the sculptures she made at Trewyn Studio. In the centre of the garden, stands the enormous Four Square (Walk Through) of 1966, the artist's largest work. On the other side of the path you can see the unusual steel rod sculpture Apollo of 1951, which was made for the Old Vic production of Sophocles' Electra, for which the artist designed the sets and costumes.
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www.lookaroundcornwall.com
Barbara Hepworth and Friends on beach St Ives in late 1950s
