Curved Form (Pavan)

Curved Form (Pavan)
1956
Impregnated plaster, painted, on an aluminium armature
52 x 80 x 48.5 cm
Presented by the artist’s daughters, Rachel Kidd and Sarah Bowness, through the Trustees of the Barbara Hepworth Estate and the Art Fund. Barbara Hepworth © Bowness. Photography Mark Heathcote

This sculpture was made in the year that Hepworth returned to casting in bronze, a practice she had not regularly used since her youth. Although made in plaster, the material has been ‘metallised’ to give the illusion of bronze.

By building up plaster on a metal armature, Hepworth was able to create flowing forms, perhaps to retain what she described as ‘the qualities of molten material’.

The title Pavan refers to a stately court dance of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and indicates Hepworth’s lifelong passion for dance and music.