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A Picture of Britain : 15 June  –  4 September 2005
 
  A Picture of Britain
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an exhibition celebrating the British landscape - 16 June - 4 September 2005
 
Dame Barbara Hepworth
Pelagos
(1946)
Barbara Hepworth - Pelagos © Bowness, Hepworth Estate

 

© Bowness, Hepworth Estate

Listen to Audio Guide for this work (MP3 format, 1.7MB)
Listen to the artist talking about her work (MP3 format, 0.9MB)
Read transcript

This sculpture was carved from a ball of polished elm. The matt pale blue evokes the sea and the strings joining the curved arms suggest tension. The title comes from the Greek word for 'sea'.

Hepworth was inspired by the view over Carbis Bay from her St Ives studio: 'My response to the view was that of a primitive man who observes the curves of a coast and horizon and experiences...a sense of containment and security rather than the dangers of an endless expanse of water... The strings were the tension I felt between myself and the sea, the wind or the hills.'