Dame Barbara Hepworth (January 10, 1903 - May 20, 1975), born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, was one of the most important 20th Century Artists and British Artists of the 20th Century. She was certainly the pre-eminent of female British sculptors. As great a sculptor as her friend and contemporary Henry Moore, if not quite as famous.

Barbara Hepworth's full name was Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth, but she was always known as Barbara. She studied Art at Leeds School of Art (where she met and became friends with Henry Moore), the Royal College of Art, London, and in Italy.

One of her most prestigious works was Single Form (1961-1964), a memorial to the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, at the United Nations building in New York City.

Hepworth married the sculptor John Skeaping (1901-1980), and later became the second wife of the painter Ben Nicholson. She was made a Dame in 1965.

Hepworth died in a fire in her studio in St Ives, Cornwall. Her home and studio have been made the Barbara Hepworth Museum.

Hepworth's work can be seen in St Ives at the Barbara Hepworth Museum, at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park at West Bretton, West Yorkshire. Examples can also be found at Churchill College, Cambridge. In London there is one at Kenwood House, and in Oxford Street a large sculpture is attached to the eastern wall of the John Lewis department store; another sculpture is affixed to the outer wall of a tall office building in St Martin's Lane near Covent Garden.

Selected list of works

• 1928 Doves - Parian marble
• 1932-33 Seated Figure - lignum vitae
• 1933 Two Forms - alabaster and limestone
• 1934 Mother and Child - Cumberland alabaster
• 1935 Three Forms - Serravezza marble
• 1936 Ball Plane and Hole - lignum vitae, mahogany and oak
• 1940 Sculpture with Colour (Deep Blue and Red) - mixed media
• 1943 Oval Sculpture - cast material
• 1943-44 Wave - wood, paint and strings
• 1944 Landscape Sculpture - wood (cast in bronze in 1961)
• 1946 Pelagos - wood, paint and string
• 1946 Tides - wood and paint
• 1949 Operation: Case for Discussion - oil and pencil on pressed paperboard
• 1951 Group I (Concourse) February 4 1951 - Serravezza marble
• 1953 Hieroglyph - ancaster
• 1954-55 Two Figures - teak and paint
• 1955 Oval Sculpture (Delos) - scented guarea wood and paint
• 1955-56 Cor&eacute - bronze
• 1956 Orpheus (Maquette) (Version II) - brass and cotton string
• 1956 Stringed Figure (Curlew), Version II - brass and cotton string
• 1958 Cantate Domino - bronze
• 1958 Sea Form (Porthomeor) - bronze
• 1960 Figure for a Landscape - bronze
• 1960 Archaeon - bronze
• 1962-63 Bronze Form (Patmos) - bronze
• 1964 Rock Form (Porthcurno) - Bronze
• 1964 Sea Form (Atlantic) - bronze
• 1966 Figure in a Landscape - bronze on wooden base
• 1966 Four-Square Walk Through - bronze
• 1968 Two Figures - bronze
• 1970 Family of Man - bronze
• 1971 The Aegean Suite - series of prints
• 1971 Summer Dance - painted bronze
• 1972 Minoan Head - marble on wooden base
• 1972 Assembly of Sea Forms - white marble mounted on stainless steel base
• 1973 Conversation with Magic Stones - bronze