Rare Barbara Hepworth sculpture could fetch up to £8m at auction
A Dame Barbara Hepworth sculpture is expected to sell for up to £8m when it goes up for auction this month.
A rare Dame Barbara Hepworth sculpture carved from Hopton Wood stone is poised to be a star lot at Christie’s modern British and Irish art auction later this month, with estimates up to £8 million.
The 1946 piece, titled Sculpture with Colour (Eos), is set to lead Christie’s modern British and Irish art evening sale on October 21, with an estimated price tag between £5 million and £8 million.
Diverse cultural ties anchor the artist firmly to Yorkshire: born in Wakefield in January 1903, Dame Barbara studied at Leeds School of Art before going on to become one of the 20th century's defining figures in modern sculpture. Wakefield’s art gallery is named in her honour and remains free to visit for Wakefield District residents.
Sculpted from a single block of pale Hopton Wood stone, the artwork rises from its base in an organic ovoid form balanced on its narrowest point. Christie’s noted that it exemplifies the artist’s commitment to "truth to materials" and direct carving, created solely with tools she handled herself.
Taking its name from Eos, the Greek goddess of dawn, the swelling piece "suggests emergence, awakening and renewal: a new world coming into being", according to the auction house. Its exterior features three hollows finished with paint in pure white, subtle pale grey, and deep, rich blue.
The carving is one of just three known coloured stone works created by Dame Barbara in 1946. That same year, it appeared in a photograph of the artist captured by Lee Miller for Vogue, and it was recently showcased in the Hepworth in Colour exhibition at London's Courtauld Gallery.
The work was made after she relocated to Carbis Bay, near St Ives in Cornwall, at the start of the Second World War.
Christie’s said the sculptor "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". The auctioneer added that the setting "strongly influenced" her artistic output.
She was born in January 1903 in Wakefield and studied at the Leeds School of Art.
She died aged 72 in an accidental fire at her studio in 1975. Wakefield’s art gallery is named after her. It is free for Wakefield District residents.
The current world auction record for her work was set by Christie’s in 2023, when her 1970 piece The Family of Man: Ancestor II fetched £10.7 million.
Sculpture with Colour (Eos) will be on view at Christie’s London until October 14 and again from October 17 to 21 as part of the Modern British and Irish Sales exhibition.
Christie’s modern British and Irish art evening sale will be held on October 21.