Barbara Hepworth | Lithographs and Silk Screen Prints

The sculptor Barbara Hepworth made extensive use of painting and drawing throughout her career. Later in her life she also made prints. Two series of prints, made in 1969, are marked by the expansive, uninhibited quality of her late style. In spring 1969, a first series consisting of twelve lithographs was printed by Stanley Jones at the Curwen Press. A few months later, a series of twelve silk screen prints was printed by Chris Prater of Kelpra Studio. This series, titled ‘Opposing Forms’, was published by Marlborough Fine Art in January 1970. The prints included here formed a part of those sets. In 1971, Hepworth produced a third series composed of nine lithographs called ‘The Aegean Suite’.

Hepworth wasted no time exhibiting the new prints alongside her sculpture. The first two series of twelve prints were shown in her solo exhibition at Marlborough Fine Art, London, in February–March 1970, and again in a retrospective organised by the Arts Council of Great Britain in summer the same year. The lithographs were exhibited in a touring exhibition of sculpture and prints, also arranged by the Arts Council, which toured thirteen venues in England between January 1970 and January 1971.

Hepworth’s silk screen and lithographic prints have the same rich colour and graphic intensity as her drawings and paintings. She began by making an autograph work, which often combined line drawing—for the geometrical elements of the composition—and a painterly medium (either watercolour, soft crayon or thinned oil paint)—which freely overlaid and interacted with the geometric armature. These autograph works were then handed to professional printmakers. Both Stanley Jones (1933–2023) at Curwen and Chris Prater (1924–1996) at Kelpra were skilled technicians, whose expertise brought them into collaboration with artists including Henry Moore and David Hockney among many others. 

Porthmeor was an artist’s copy given by Hepworth to one A. S. McDonald of Thurso. In a signed typescript letter dated 17 January 1974, which accompanies the print, Hepworth explained that this was ‘my last copy’ since ‘the lithographs have been much sought after.’ In a handwritten postscript at the bottom of the letter, Hepworth added: ‘The sun sets on Porthmeor BH’.

For both silk screen and lithographic prints, Hepworth’s autograph designs were translated by the printmakers. The silk screen method uses a transparent fabric screen, and its distinctive mesh pattern is apparent in areas of colour in these prints. In both silk screen and lithographic processes, a single work requires as many printings as there are colours in the print. These technical parameters may have contributed to Hepworth’s decision to use a narrow palette in these works, in which colour was applied in saturated, strongly contrasting areas.