1961: BARBARA HEPWORTH on SCULPTURE | Barbara Hepworth | 1960s | BBC Archive

[@thecaveofthedead]

I'm not often moved by modern art, but her work always blew me away.

[@professormcclaine5738]

Stunning form, her work is extraordinary. Age notwithstanding I wish she were here today producing more work.

[@nickwalter9630]

goodness that was pleasant to watch.

[@robinvanags912]

Indeed.

[@hilaryepstein6013]

What a lovely film. She gives a true understanding of her art and I love the idea of carrying a stone washed up by the sea. In this uncertain world I think we could all do with one.

[@andydixon2980]

I often hold onto stones i've picked up from the beaches and she has just made me realise why I do it.

[@brianartillery]

I never 'got' Barbara Hepworth's work - until I worked in a museum that displayed several of her pieces. I said so to the Curator. "Ah" he said. "But have you actually touched them; run your fingers over them?" "No." I replied. "I didn't know I was allowed to." As soon as I touched one of the pieces, the tactile nature of it made me understand the art perfectly.

[@MarijTanaka]

What a lovely film. Thank you!

[@gump5ter01]

The sculpture in Oxford street John Lewis is a beautiful piece

[@RoweFilms]

My great aunt 🙂

[@jasonayres]

I was once taught that, "There are no boring stories. Only boring story tellers." I had no interest in sculptures, I had no idea who this lady was, and yet, over 60 years later, she's made me think differently about a subject that I didn't know I needed to know. Well, I'll look at the beach and cliffs a little differently today.

[@ayseoz2802]

Great video, thank you.

[@lakshmanankomathmanalath]

😍

[@petitemonsoon1238]

heavyweight

[@markgoddard2560]

I drilled a hole in a stone once and polished it up, but unfortunately I sold it for only £300,000 pounds. That was back in the days when one still had to have real artistic skill such as Turner or Constable in the post war years to be called an artist. If I could have hung on to that stone it would be worth millions today - rather like Tracy Emin selling that neon sign to Tony Blair for £500,000.

[@williamscott2703]

Certainly,agree Weres,the,future,constable

[@heraldeventsandfilms5970]

A giant of European art.

[@Traveller69]

Grim with a capital G. Chose to live in a beautiful natural environment and yet subject urban environments to brutalist modern art. Oh the irony.

[@markanderson831]

It’s a shame that you can’t see the beauty of the Cornish landscape in Barbara’s work. It’s there, if you follow the lines and curves, heft of the material and the negative spaces she produced. I grew up in Cornwall; indeed, I chose to go back to St Ives to get married - whenever I see one of Barbara’s pieces, it transports me back to my home county, to salt in the air, the rolling fields, the sheer cliffs, the subtropical gardens. For me, Hepworth is as much Cornwall as Moore is Yorkshire. There’s nothing brutalist about her work, at least for me, but it takes time to find the beauty in her work when you compare it with where it was created.

[@Traveller69]

@@markanderson831 That in itself is the 'beauty' of differing opinions and being able to exchange them.

[@markanderson831]

@@Traveller69 - Very true. Not for a moment suggesting your opinion is anything less than mine. I guess I have such a love of Hepworth, I want everyone to see the beauty in her work in the way that I do… and that isn't to suggest that those who don't see what I do are in any way less or depleted… I just love her work a lot. It stirs something in me that I'd love others to share.

[@NoosaHeads]

To me, the sculptures are primitive, childish, inchoate, lazy and talentless. Nowadays, we accept all kind of rubbish. As long as someone (not necessarily the artists) gives a wordy explanation of their convoluted thought processes. We accept it without question - to do so might show us up as being lacking in imagination. (And we can't have that,can we?). This perversity has led to monstrosities such as those from Warhol and Basquiat. Art so astonishingly bad, that I'd genuinely be ashamed for a 6 year old to see. I've been to an exhibition and seen a plain canvas, 10"x8", painted with a paint roller. To the right of it was the description about how it demonstrated the expansiveness of the universe. The gallery paid thousands of dollars for it. Shame on them. Shame on us. This illustrates that we have too much money, too many pretentions and too much time on our hands. In short, we demonstrate an inability to be outraged by artistic confidence tricks. When we see something ugly and talentless, we should shout out our disgust, NOT clap like seals.

[@andydixon2980]

I tend to agree with your views. I think she gets more pleasure out of her sculpting than I do looking at it. 'Art' is such a small word but covers so many different styles and ideas. Like music, the good art and the bad is all entirely subjective. Having said that, some people just like their friends to see the weird rock shaped thing that Barbara Hepworth created, proudly sitting in their own garden. It's all bollocks really.

[@markanderson831]

Gosh, strong words. But then, I also understand why you think this way. All I would say, though, is that context is everything. When Hepworth produced her work in the early to mid twentieth century, it was groundbreaking, new and wonderful. Now, after so many people have copied her style - and badly - the original work and ideas have become a little diluted and perhaps, for some, less powerful or touching. But I appreciate your perspective too, even though I don't hold with it.