Hepworth, (Jocelyn) Barbara (1903–1975)

English sculptor. She developed a distinctive abstract style, creating slender upright forms reminiscent of standing stones or totems; and round, hollowed forms with spaces bridged by wires or strings, as in Pelagos (1946; Tate Gallery, London). Her preferred medium was stone, but she also worked in concrete, wood, and aluminium, and many of her later works were in bronze.

Hepworth was an admirer of Henry Moore, Constantin Brancusi, and Hans Arp. She married first the sculptor John Skeaping and in 1933 the painter Ben Nicholson, whose influence encouraged her interest in abstract forms. In 1939 she moved to St Ives, Cornwall (where her studio is now a museum). She was made DBE in 1965.

Her public commissions included Winged Figure (1962) for the John Lewis Building, London and Single Form (1962–63; United Nations, New York).

Hepworth was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, and studied art at Leeds and at the Royal College of Art, London, where Henry Moore was a fellow student.