Hollow Form with White Interior

Mediums: guarea wood, part painted.
Location: Gimpel Fils (London, the UK).

One of the main features of the style of Barbara Hepworth, the balance of the internal content and external form of each object, is visible in this work. Working by carving from a whole massif of wood, the artist revealed the essence of the subject with the help of recesses of various shapes, as well as the contrast of a shiny coloured surface with a light inner part. With its unusual form, the work attracts the viewer’s attention as if with a magnet, forcing him to look inside the sculpture. The work evokes associations with the depths of water or mysterious underground caves, in which it is easy to get lost and lose orientation in space and time. There is also a bronze version of this sculpture called “Elegy III”, which is in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Holland.