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Requiem

Requiem

Artist (Wakefield, England, 1903 - 1975)
Date1957
Mediumwalnut on art gallery base; wood planks
ClassificationsSculptures
DimensionsOverall: Height: 218 cm, Width: 56 cm, Depth: 41 cm
Weight: 250 kg including crate

AcquisitionPurchased in 1962 with income from the Macdonald Bequest.
Copyright© Bowness, Hepworth Estate (2003)
LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub
Object numberABDAG004635
Keywords
About MeIn 1931 Hepworth met Ben Nicholson who became her second husband. In 1932 she went to France with Nicholson and met Georges Braque, Constantin Brancusi, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian and other European avant garde artists.

From the early 1930s Hepworth's work was characterised by a purity of shape and refined simplicity of line, where figurative references were replaced by purely abstract forms. The title of this work may refers to the death of Hepworth's oldest son Paul who In 1953 was killed on a RAF mission in Malaya. 'Requiem', the funeral hymn or the elegiac poem - implies the rest granted to the human spirit after labour or suffering. This is implicit in the form of the sculpture: in the slow and measured rhythms and the rising curves. The carving possesses a beauty of surface combined with subtle and rhythmical relationships of line.

More About Me
From the early 1930s Hepworth was characterised by a purity of shape and refined simplicity of line, where figurative references were replaced purely by abstract forms. This sculpture is no exception.
Exhibitions