Barbara Hepworth was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, and studied at the Royal College of Art in London. One of Britain’s foremost sculptors, she visited Italy in 1924 to study marble carving. In Paris in 1933 she joined Abstraction-Création, an international exhibition society. Her work moved into an abstract phase, and with husband Ben Nicholson and others, she was at the forefront of the modern movement. At the outbreak of the war she moved with Nicholson to Cornwall. From 1951, after her marriage dissolved, she lived permanently in St Ives. Retrospectives were held at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1952 and 1962, and the Tate in 1968. She was created DBE in 1965. After her tragic death in a fire, her studio was opened as a museum.
