Behold above… Mycenae! As we delve further and further into the world of abstract art, floundering around as if lost amidst weird angles looking to steal our wallets, recently we discovered Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975).

From Wakefield in West Yorkshire, Hepworth studied at Leeds School of Art and the Royal College of Art in the 1920s.

Despite us flagging up her lithographs (a process of drawing on a stone or metal plate), she is most famous for her sculptures. Well, we’re ignoring those for now (although cover them at the end of the feature) as we want to look at the abstract colours and angles. Onward!

The Sparse Brushstrokes of Hepworth’s Lithographs

Okay, so yellow is our favourite colour and, naturally, we’d be drawn in to Two Opposing Forms above there. That one is from 1970 and is from the Opposing Forms collection of works. It was a celebration of cosmic themes and celestial bodies.

Again, she was largely famous for her sculptures. So this was all a dynamic shift into 2D for the artist. It’s all very endearing, like with High Tide here.

Opposing Forms followed Hepworth’s Twelve Lithographs (1969) collection.

Mycenae may be our favourite of the lot from the 1969 set, but let us ignore the likes of Autumn Shadow. Again, all very sparse—just a few swishes here and there, some colour, otherwise grey. But it works a treat.

Hepworth visited Greece in the late 1950s and was in the process of grieving. Her eldest son had died in an air crash in 1954. She turned to creativity for an outlet.

Mycenae is part of that collection. We recently picked up a 2025 calendar of her work by The Hepworth Wakefield gallery (named after the artist and located up in Yorkshire). The calendar’s description of this piece is as follows.

“The artist found solace from her grief in the luminosity of the sun on the coastal landscape and the forms of historic sculpture and architecture: ‘Timeless and in space, pure in conception and like a rock to hold on to, these forms in Greece have a constant source of inspiration.”

That may explain why some of the pieces in the collection are so bleak and stark. Squares and Circles is positively monolithic, although the clip below does give you a sense of scale to this work.

MyArtBroker noted this of the 12 pieces.

“Influenced by her time in St Ives and her close association with the St Ives School, Hepworth’s lithographs capture the essence of Cornwall’s landscapes and its interplay of light and shadow. Each print reveals Hepworth’s meticulous attention to detail and her commitment to exploring the essence of form and materiality.”

Hepworth carried on with her creative work right up until her unfortunate passing. There was a fire at her studio in Cornwall on 20th May 1975 when she was 72.

But thanks to spotting the 2025 calendar, by chance on sale at that there Manchester Art Gallery, we’ve discovered another abstract art master to brighten our lives.

Notes on Barbara Hepworth’s Sculptures

Hepworth’s sculptures are all still there at her garden in St. Ives of Cornwall, England. 49 years after her passing, that’s a fitting tribute art historians are keeping it all preserved.

And, rather nicely, the recognition for her work carries on to this day. Google even honoured here in 2020 with a Google Doodle on its main search engine (Celebrating Barbara Hepworth).

Google’s page notes this of her style.

“As depicted in today’s Doodle artwork, Hepworth was one of the leading practitioners of ‘direct carving,’ a technique by which the sculpting process is influenced by the qualities of the raw materials, rather than a preconceived model. Her work is frequently marked by a sensitive, organic quality and a signature focus on the interplay between mass and empty space.”

It’s easy to find her stuff online if you want to learn more. Or there’s the sculpture garden on Barnoon Hill, Cornwall, with an admission fee of only £8.