Barbara Hepworth

In reference to Picture Story Productions.

Barbara Hepworth was a leading figure of the international modern art movement in the 1930s, and one of the most successful sculptors in the world during the 1950s and 1960s.

Hepworth worked with wood, stone and metal in a range of scales, as well as producing many drawings and prints. Like a pebble on a beach, her work seems like it has been carved by the sea over thousands of years. (She moved to the seaside town of St Ives in 1949.)

My favourite work of Hepworth’s is the monumental ‘Single Form’, which was completed in 1964. It is made of bronze and is situated outside the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York City.

‘Single Form’ has always reminded me of the original Open University logo, which was designed just five years later. Both perform a kind of abstract civic duty.