Two works by the modernist sculptor Barbara Hepworth are to be sold by the school that she loved because of the spiralling cost of insuring them.
Forms in Movement (Galliard) and Quiet Form will be auctioned by the Wakefield Grammar School Foundation next month to fund bursaries for young artists. Both pieces draw on Hepworth’s close ties with the school.
“I shall never forget the joy of going to school and the gorgeous smell of the paint I was allowed to use, nor the inspiration and help the headmistress, Miss McCroben, gave me,” she once said.
Hepworth attended Wakefield Girls’ High School from the age of six until she left in July 1920, aged 17. A slideshow of Egyptian sculpture presented to her by Miss McCroben is said to have helped kindle her passion for art.
In 1959 Margaret Knott, a new headmistress at the school, asked Hepworth to provide a piece to mark the opening of a new gymnasium. Forms in Movement, completed in 1956, was made of copper ribbon and inspired by the galliard, an energetic 16th-century dance.
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When Miss Knott retired in 1973, Hepworth presented her with Quiet Form, a white marble sculpture intended to reflect peace and tranquillity. “With my love to you and the school which I never forget,” Hepworth wrote.
The artist died in 1975 aged 72 and in 2003 Miss Knott gave Quiet Form to the school where it took up residence in the headmistress’s study. Both works were lent to the Hepworth Wakefield gallery for its opening in 2011 but upon their return governors were dismayed to discover the cost of insuring them. John McLeod, a governor, said: “While this means that it is hard to justify devoting valuable – and limited – school resources to insurance, it also means that we have the unexpected opportunity to release significant funds to afford other students just the kind of special opportunities Barbara Hepworth enjoyed.”
The Sotheby’s sale is on June 13 in London. Quiet Form has a guide price of £500,000 to £700,000 and Forms in Movement, £250,000 to £300,000.