‘ Do you know that I love marble specially because of its radiance in the light, its hardness, precision and response to the sun?’ 1
– Barbara Hepworth

During Barbara Hepworth’s lifetime, she produced more than 600 sculptures, more than 100 of which were carved in different varieties of marble. According to Hodin’s catalogue raisonné, the present work is one of around 15 carvings Hepworth made in Seravezza marble in the 1930s. More specifically, it is one of a group of three virtually identical sculptures entitled Conoid, Sphere & Hollow that Hepworth carved in this material in 1937.2 This is the second and largest version of the sculpture, and the first and third carvings reside in the permanent collections of MoMA, New York, and the Government Art Collection, UK, respectively.3
Carving was Hepworth’s predominant mode of expression, through which she produced some of her most celebrated works. Taught the traditional technique of marble carving over a nine-month period by Italian master-carver Giovanni Ardini in Florence in 1925, Hepworth became, alongside Henry Moore, one of Britain’s leading exponents of ‘direct carving’ in the 1920s. Ardini’s assertions that ‘marble can only be carved with tenderness’ 4 and that ‘marble changes colour under different people’s hands’, encouraged a deeper appreciation within Hepworth for the unique properties of the material. The artist’s time in Italy had a profound impact on the direction her work was to take. It was here that she was first introduced to Seravezza marble, which she later used to carve this sculpture and would continue to work with throughout the rest of her career.5 Some 40 years later she declared, ‘I am one of the few people in the world who know how to speak through marble'.6
In 1933, Hepworth abandoned the traditional notion of sculpture as a single, integral mass and began to create two-part sculptural juxtapositions in order to explore relationships between forms. Then, after the birth of Hepworth and Ben Nicholson’s triplets in 1934, the artist introduced a third form into her work, as she recalls:
‘When I started carving again in November 1934, my work seemed to have changed direction, although the only fresh influence had been the arrival of my children. The work was more formal and all traces of naturalism had disappeared, and for some years I was absorbed in the relationships in space, size and texture and weight, as well as the tensions between the forms.’ 7
In this carving, Hepworth establishes a complex dialogue between the three geometric forms. At roughly double the height of the sphere, the conoid towers above the marble base, into which Hepworth hascarved a circular hollow. While the conoid is the weightiest form of the group, the hollow is weightless, existing as negative space. The sharply cut top and flat sides of the angular conoid contrast with the perfect curves of the sphere and the delicate hollow. Yet, despite these tensions, there is a sense of balance and harmony within the sculpture. This is the result of a number of careful artistic considerations and demonstrates Hepworth’s mastery as a sculptor even at this early stage in her career. Carved to be roughly the same circumference, one can picture the sphere fitting perfectly inside the hollow. By echoing the circular motif in these two carved elements, Hepworth creates a unifying aspect to the composition. In her multi-part carvings, Hepworth uses the base to define the relationships between the forms, and here she positions them very close together, with the frontal plane of the conoid leaning inwards towards the sphere and hollow, evoking a sense of intimacy.
For Hepworth, ‘the understanding of the material and the meaning of the form being carved must be in perfect equilibrium’.8 The artist’s association of marble with hardness, precision and radiance relates directly to her execution of Conoid, Sphere & Hollow II. Despite carving this sculpture using the very physical traditional method of chisel and hammer, Hepworth has eliminated all trace of her hand, achieving a crisp, smooth finish that enhances the play of light across the surfaces.
Between 1934 and 1944, Hepworth photographed her own sculptures, staging them in what she envisaged as their ideal settings. The present work features in the British Film Institute’s 1953 Figures in a Landscape, Cornwall and the Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth, which was shown at the Edinburgh and Venice Film Festivals the same year.25 In this short film, Conoid, Sphere & Hollow II is seen positioned on the rocky shore of St Ives, with Godrevy Lighthouse visible in the distance.9 By staging the work in this way, Hepworth makes connections between the sculpture and the landscape and architecture, the tall, upright form of the conoid closely echoing the lighthouse behind.
It is interesting to consider this sculpture in relation to the work of other artists at this time. During this period, Hepworth and her partner Ben Nicholson were producing works united by a similar formal vocabulary and the predominance of white; while she was carving in white marble, from 1934 he began experimenting with making entirely white reliefs from white card or painted wood. The two artists’ converging concerns were a function of their shared interests, contacts and workspaces in Mall Studios. White had achieved an ideological significance among modernists, signifying the ‘perfection, purity and certitude’ of the era.10 In particular, a preference for white was associated with the clarity and proportional harmony of contemporary architecture, and especially that of Le Corbusier. Hepworth’s attraction to white may have stemmed from her recent visit to Piet Mondrian’s studio, which, she remembered, ‘made me gasp with surprise at its beauty … everything gleamed with whiteness’.11 Art historian Alan G. Wilkinson has also made a direct link between this sculpture and Alberto Giacometti’s platform sculptures of the early 1930s, and indeed, in 1936 a year prior to carving the present work, Hepworth had featured alongside the artist in the infamous Abstract and Concrete exhibition which toured Britain.

1 J.P. Hodin, ‘Barbara Hepworth and the Mediterranean Spirit’, Marmo, no.3, December 1964, p59
2 In version I and II of the sculpture, the sphere is to the right of the conoid, while in version III, it is to the left.
3 Version I (bh 98) entered the collection of MoMA, New York, through the bequest of Virginia C. Field, in 2004. Version III (bh 100a), which does not feature in J.P. Hodin’s catalogue raisonné, or in the artist’s sculpture records, has been part of the Government Art Collection, UK, since 1966.
4 J.P. Hodin, Barbara Hepworth, David McKay Company Inc. New York/ Switzerland, 1961, p13
5 Extracted from the mountains of Seravezza, Tuscany
6 The artist in a letter to Norman Reid, dated 7 November 1964, Tate Gallery Acquisitions
7 The artist in ‘Note 3: Constructive forms and poetic structure 1934 – 1939’, Herbert Read, Barbara Hepworth: Carvings and Drawings, Lund Humphries, London, 1952
8 The artist cited in Barbara Hepworth Retrospective Exhibition 1927 – 1954, Whitechapel Gallery, London,1954, exh cat, p10
9 Hepworth had moved to St Ives in 1934, three years prior to making the present sculpture
10 Theo van Doesburg ‘Versa la Peinture’, Art Concret, April 1930, translated in Joost Baljeu, Theo van Doesburg, Macmillan, New York, 1974, p183
11 The artist in ‘Note 3: Constructive forms and poetic structure 1934 – 1939’, Herbert Read, Barbara Hepworth: Carvings and Drawings, Lund Humphries, London, 1952