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PROPERTY FROM THE VANTHOURNOUT COLLECTION

1903-1975
ULTIMATE FORM (THE FAMILY OF MAN)

ULTIMATE FORM (THE FAMILY OF MAN)

measurements
height: 118 in.

alternate measurements
300 cm

Conceived and cast in 1970 in an edition of 2 and an edition of 4. This work is number 1/4.

Stamped with the foundry mark Morris Singer Founders London

Bronze

PROVENANCE

Marlborough Gallery, London

Acquired from the above in 1973

EXHIBITED

London, Marlborough Gallery, Barbara Hepworth -- the Family of Man -- Nine Bronzes and Recent Carvings, 1972, no. 9

Edinburgh International Festival 1976 at The Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, Barbara Hepworth Late Works, 1976, no. 11

LITERATURE

Barbara Hepworth (exhibition catalogue), Marlborough Fnie Art Gallery, Zürich, 1975, illustration of another cast p. 8

A. M. Hammacher, Barbara Hepworth, London, 1987 & 1996, illustrated pl. 178

Gale and Chris Stephens, Barbara Hepworth: Works in the Tate Gallery Collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum St Ives, London, 1999, illustration of another cast p. 18

Chris Stephens (ed.), Barbara Hepworth Centenary, London, 2004, no. 94, illustration of another cast p. 143

NOTE

Hepworth completed this monumental figure in 1970, only five years before her death. As the artist herself admitted, there is a certain poignancy about these late works, as they addressed topics of special significance to her during the last years of her life. The present work is one of nine large sculptures from a series known as The Family of Man. In all of these figures Hepworth addresses human history, and the weightiness of the subject comes across in the powerful structure of the present work. Stacking horizontal and vertical bronze shapes to construct a towering vertical monument, Hepworth has created a modern-day totem-pole that she considered the "ultimate form" of this important series. According to Alan G. Wilkinson, Hepworth's Family of Man series established her as the premier sculptor of the upright, standing figure. He explains that "In The Family of Man [...], Hepworth presents us with a twentieth-century recreation of the prehistoric menhirs, quoits, and stone circles that had been a constant source of inspiration since she moved to Cornwall in 1939" (Alan G. Wilkinson, Barbara Hepworth, Sculptures from the Estate (exhibition catalogue), Wildenstein Gallery, New York, 1996, p. 31).

Abstract and decidedly modern, Ultimate Form possesses a distinct beauty and sense of timelessness in its solidity and curvilinear formation. The year that she created the present work, Hepworth wrote about the meaning that she assigned to many of her sculptures: "Working in the abstract way seems to realize one's personality and sharpen the perceptions so that in the observation of humanity or landscape it is the wholeness of inner intention which moves one so profoundly. The components fall into place and one is no longer aware of the detail except as the necessary significance of wholeness and unity....a rhythm of form which has its roots in earth but reaches outwards towards the unknown experiences of the future. The thought underlying this form is, for me, the delicate balance the spirit of man maintains between his knowledge and the laws of the universe" (Barbara Hepworth, Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial Autobiography, Wiltshire, 1970, p. 93).

According to Sophie Bowness, Ultimate Form was cast in two editions. The entire series of nine figures constituting The Family of Man was cast in an edition of two: Group 1/2 is located at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Group 2/2 is located at Pepsico. There are also four individual casts of each of the nine figures in the Family, and Bowness has confirmed that the present bronze is number 1/4.