A trip down to London yesterday to finally get to the Barbara Hepworth exhibition at Tate Britain. We’ve been meaning to go ever since it opened, but the beauty of procrastination is that by the time we got round to it, the Frank Auerbach retrospective had also opened. So, two for one!
The structure for the day was helped enormously when we bought the tickets and found out it was anytime entry for both. First up in the morning was the Barbara Hepworth exhibition, which was comprehensive enough and showed not just her own development but also showcased a few works from her forbears as well as her contemporaries. We’ve always enjoyed the signature Hepworth sculptures, but are more used to seeing the big statement pieces in their natural settings. Seeing the smaller scale work and in such volume was a little disconcerting. It might be argued that whilst she certainly innovated in both her use of material and how those materials could be worked and developed, the form of her pieces might be described as a little uniform. However, this is not necessarily how you would normally appreciate Hepworth sculptures and this exhibition showcased the materials, forms and statements that the artist made throughout her career very well indeed. The argument that the abstract movement was in some ways a riposte to the fascist developments taking place across Europe seem a little far fetched. Perhaps the artists themselves felt that way, but it’s hard to see Hitler quaking in his boots.
A little lunch and then back for the Frank Auerbach retrospective. Unlike Hepworth, we knew little of him or his work and so were very pleasantly surprised by the exhibition, particularly his portrait work (less so the landscapes). Perversely, we were both more impressed with his earlier acrylic work, which he applied so thickly the portraits took on an almost 3D like quality. Almost primeval in their austerity, the portraits often took many months to complete, so painstaking was Auerbach’s approach to his subject. I know many of the critics laud the London landscapes that take centre stage in the exhibition, but many of them seem taken with his singular interpretation of a place they know so well – for others, other than the evident quality of the art itself, perhaps the effect isn’t quite so immediate. My favourite was probably the most conventional painting in the retrospective, ‘Garden 1’, painted fairly early on in his career in 1963. A real find and a well put together, if rather suitably stark, retrospective. And we didn’t even know he was British, how ignorant.
A quick visit to the National Portrait Gallery, a bite to eat at the Café in the Crypt at St. Martins and then the train home. Excellent day out!