Modeled in plaster 1956; cast in bronze 1956

Involute

English, 1903 - 1975

Barbara Hepworth sought to make abstract art that builds on nature’s sensual forms. Her deployment of an involute—a spiral curve that can be observed in organisms across the biological world, from leaves to mollusk shells—underlines an intuition that applies to her sculpture more broadly: in order to discover new forms of sculpture it is necessary to dispense with the direct imitation of nature, which could only produce a fragmentary, second-hand reproduction of the world. This sculpture was executed by casting an armature consisting of plaster over bent aluminum sheet.