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Barbara Hepworth 1903-1975 Two studies of a girl on white, 1951 Signed and dated lower left 'Barbara Hepworth 1951'; signed, titled, annotated and dated verso Oil, pencil and pastel on Japanese paper 19 1/2 x 12 3/8 in, 49.5 x 31.4 cm Provenance Gimpel Fils, London Robert Halsband, New York Gimpel and Weitzenhoffer, New York Private Collection, Oregon New Arts Centre, London Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above 26 November 1986 and thence by descent) Exhibition San Antonio, McNay Art Institute, Collectors Gallery, 20 November - 31 December 1970 Literature This work is registered in the Barbara Hepworth archives of Sophie Bowness under no. D 288 Following the Second World War, when she had settled in St Ives with her young family, Hepworth produced a series of drawings of the female nude that marked a return to the human body for the first time since the 1920s. Two studies of a girl on white is a lithe and elegant example of Hepworth's renewed interest in figurative drawings. This shift was likely stimulated by Moore's comparative wartime images of the Underground and the coal mines of Yorkshire. Hepworth wrote to the critic Herbert Read of her need to reintroduce a human element to her work at this point to replenish 'one's love for life, humanity and the earth'. By 1951, Hepworth's marriage to the artist Ben Nicholson had broken down and she had moved permanently to her Trewyn Studio in St Ives, where she would stay until her death. Around this time, Hepworth forged a close friendship with a local girl called Lisa, who is likely to be the model for this composite study of two nudes. For these drawings Hepworth would ask the model to move 'about naturally, pausing or resting at certain moments, but never taking up an artificial position' so, in a similar manner to sculpture, she could really examine the body from different angles.