Sophie Bowness - Böcker

Selected criticism, essays and lectures by Sir Alan Bowness, critic, art historian and former director of the Tate Gallery. With a foreword by Dawn AdesThis book comprises the selected writings of the eminent art historian, critic and museum director, Sir Alan Bowness (1928-2021). In the 1950s and early 1960s he was a regular and acute critic of contemporary art for Art News and Review, The Observer, The Spectator, Times Literary Review and the New York-based magazine Arts, among others. His reviews were often among the first substantial articles on the post-war generation of British artists, many of whom became his friends, and the first significant writings published in Britain on leading contemporary European and American artists. Many of these important but long out of print articles and essays are re-published here, as are others on the subject Bowness taught at the Courtauld Institute of Art from 1957 to 1980: nineteenth century French painting.Bowness left the Courtauld in 1980 to take up the post of director of the Tate Gallery. Under his leadership, the museum expanded its collection, deepened its commitment to scholarship, established itself as a major patron of contemporary art, not least through the Turner Prize which he initiated, and embarked on an expansion programme that led to the opening of Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives and a new wing of what is now Tate Britain. His writings on museums (he also set up the Barbara Hepworth Museum, St Ives, and was involved with The Hepworth, Wakefield) and his reflections on criticism and reputation, also published here, remain especially relevant for the present era of mega-museums and art hype.

Celebrating the generous gift of Barbara Hepworth's plasters to The Hepworth Wakefield by the Hepworth Estate, this groundbreaking publication combines a fully illustrated catalogue of the sculptor's surviving prototypes in plaster, and occasionally aluminium, with a detailed analysis of her working methods and a comprehensive history of her work in bronze. In addition, insights into the building which will be home to the collection are provided through essays exploring the history of The Hepworth and, in a contribution by David Chipperfield, the design of the new museum by his architectural practice. A fascinating account of the sculptor's connections with Wakefield Art Gallery also features. The Hepworth's collection of over 40 unique, unknown sculptures are the surviving working models from which editions of bronzes were cast. They range in size from works that can be held in the hand to monumental sculptures, including the Winged Figure for John Lewis's Oxford Street headquarters. The majority are original plasters on which the artist worked with her own hands and to scale. Providing a unique insight into Hepworth's working processes, on which little has been written, Barbara Hepworth: The Plasters will enhance appreciation of her work as a whole. Drawing extensively on archival records and photographs, this publication is an important source for information about a significant collection of work, the gallery which houses it and Hepworth in general.

Celebrating the generous gift of Barbara Hepworth’s plasters to The Hepworth Wakefield by the Hepworth Estate, this groundbreaking publication, amended to bring the story up-to-date, combines a fully illustrated catalogue of the sculptor’s surviving prototypes in plaster, and occasionally aluminium, with a detailed analysis of her working methods and a comprehensive history of her work in bronze. In addition, insights into the building which is home to the collection are provided through essays exploring the history of The Hepworth and, in a contribution by David Chipperfield, the design of the museum by his architectural practice. A fascinating account of the sculptor’s connections with Wakefield Art Gallery also features.The Hepworth’s collection of over forty unique, unknown sculptures are the surviving working models from which editions of bronzes were cast. They range in size from works that can be held in the hand to monumental sculptures, including the Winged Figure for John Lewis’s Oxford Street headquarters. The majority are original plasters on which the artist worked with her own hands and to scale.Providing a unique insight into Hepworth’s working processes, on which little has been written, Barbara Hepworth: The Plasters enhances appreciation of her work as a whole. Drawing extensively on archival records and photographs, this publication is an important source for information about a significant collection of work, the gallery which houses it and Hepworth in general.

Barbara Hepworth: The Sculptor in the Studio is the first study devoted to Hepworth's St Ives studio in which the centrality of Trewyn Studio and garden to her art and life is brought to the fore. 'It affects my whole life & work most profoundly', she wrote to a friend in 1949 shortly before acquiring it. A history and a portrait of a unique place, the book illuminates the ways in which the place and the work are bound together. It explores Hepworth's working environment and the development of her practice over a period of 25 years. The studio, and especially the garden that Hepworth shaped, was the primary and ideal context in which her sculptures were viewed. Following Hepworth's death in 1975, Trewyn Studio was opened as the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, fulfilling the hopes she had expressed at the end of her life. The adaptation of Hepworth's studio-home to create the Museum is examined in detail. The Museum was given to the Tate Gallery in 1980, becoming the first of Tate's outstations and helping to lay the foundations for Tate St Ives. It contains the largest group of Hepworth's works, permanently on display in the place in which they were created. Here the visitor is closest to Hepworth's work and to the sources of her inspiration.