“Body experience,” the English sculptor Barbara Hepworth said, “is the center of creation.” Taking note of Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, and Henry Moore, Hepworth (1903–1975) forged her own approach to sculpture, finding a formal language both poetic and pacifist. Her ovoid and biomorphic creations have a purity, delicacy, and idealism that set her apart from male colleagues muscling into space. This overview of the artist’s postwar oeuvre pays special attention to work from the 1960s and early 70s. Many of these sculptures have never before been moved. —E.C.

Barbara Hepworth with Curved Form, photographed by Ida Kar in the garden of her studio in St Ives, England, 1961.
Barbara Hepworth
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Rijksmuseum / Amsterdam / Art
Rijksmuseum / Amsterdam / Art
Photo: © National Portrait Gallery, London
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