Barbara Hepworth sculpture inspired by Cornish coast could fetch £8m at auction
‘Sculpture with Colour (Eos)’ will lead Christie’s modern British and Irish art evening sale
An artwork by Dame Barbara Hepworth is expected to realise up to £8 million at auction this month.
Titled ‘Sculpture with Colour (Eos)’, it will lead Christie’s modern British and Irish art evening sale.
Estimates from the auction house suggest it could fetch between £5 million and £8 million.
Carved in 1946 from a single piece of pale Hopton Wood stone, Christie’s described the piece as rising from its base in an organic ovoid form, delicately balanced on its narrowest point.
It noted the work exemplifies Dame Barbara’s commitment to "truth to materials" and direct carving, yielding unique pieces made entirely with tools she wielded herself.
Named after the Greek goddess of dawn, Christie’s said its swelling form "suggests emergence, awakening and renewal: a new world coming into being".
Across ‘Sculpture with Colour (Eos)’, three shaped hollows are accentuated with paint – a deep, rich blue, a subtle pale grey and pure white.
The artwork is one of just three known coloured stone carvings by the artist from 1946.
It appeared in a Lee Miller photograph of the sculptor for Vogue in 1946, and recently featured in the Courtauld Gallery's Hepworth in Colour exhibition in London.
The work was made after Dame Barbara moved to Cornwall at the start of the Second World War, living in Carbis Bay near St Ives.
Christie’s said she "immersed herself in the coastal landscape, absorbing impressions of the play of light across the water, as well as the natural, organic forms of cliffs, sea arches and ancient monuments that she discovered there".
It added that the Cornish coast "strongly influenced" her art, with the region's light, sea, cliffs and ancient stones becoming central to her work.
Christie’s holds the world auction record for the artist, achieved in 2023 with ‘The Family of Man: Ancestor II’. The 1970 work sold for £10.7 million.
Dame Barbara is considered among the most important 20th-century artists and is often credited with defining modern sculpture.
Born in January 1903, she died aged 72 in an accidental studio fire in 1975.
Sculpture with Colour (Eos) will be on view at Christie’s London until October 14, and again from October 17 to 21 for the Modern British and Irish Sales exhibition.
Christie’s modern British and Irish art evening sale will take place on October 21.
