Totem (1960-62)

Barbara Hepworth

white marble

Classification:

Sculpture

Materials:

Marble

Physical Object Description:

Large standing marble stone with two different sized holes

Dimensions:

147.3 cm

Accession Number:

WAKGM : A2.113

Credit:

Donated by Eric and Jean Cass through the Contemporary Art Society, 2012

Scheme:

Eric and Jean Cass Gift (2010 - 2012)

Ownership history:

Peter Stuyvesant Collection; purchased from Quinton Green Fine Art London by Eric and Jaen Cass, 12 October 1987; by whom gifted to the Contemporary Art Society, 2010; presented to The Hepworth Wakefield, 2012

Relationship:

Peter Stuyvesant Foundation Quinton Green Fine Art, London The Hepworth Wakefield Eric and Jean Cass

Totem (1960-62) was carved in the year that Hepworth was commissioned to make Winged Figure, the 5.8 metre high sculpture for the John Lewis Partnership which remains on the eastern face of their flagship store in Oxford Street, London. Also in that year Hepworth was given a major retrospective exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. In the catalogue of the centenary exhibitions held in 2003, Sophie Bowness, her granddaughter, pointed out that Hepworth wished for her work to be a totem, a talisman or a kind of touchstone for all that is of lasting value. Hepworth was directly attached to marble, whch she prized for its luminosity, sensitivity, sensuousness and strength and which she worked for over half a century.

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