Born in 1903, Barbara Hepworth made her name creating sensuous, abstract forms that echo the natural world. From 1950 onwards, she began working in bronze and revisiting existing artworks and forms to cast them in metal. In 1964, Hepworth finished her monumental five-tonne Single Form bronze sculpture for the United Nations headquarters in New York. The sculpture, which was her largest and most prominent public commission in bronze, commemorated the death of her friend Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the UN, who was killed in an air crash in 1961. Hammarskjöld was a collector of Hepworth’s works and proudly displayed her 1937–38 sandalwood sculpture Single Form in his United Nations office. Single Form (In Memory of Dag Hammarskjöld) has been displayed in a circular water feature in the United Nations Plaza since June 1964.

Contact us for more information
Visit website