In the early years of World War II, restrictions on Barbara Hepworth's time, materials and studio space lead her to take up drawing as both a practical creative outlet and a means to generate a source of income. Even as the privations of war began to lift, her drawing practice gained further momentum. Although initially Hepworth concentrated on producing abstract geometric compositions, in 1947 she returned to the subject of the human body, beginning work on two important series of figurative drawings concurrently; her ‘hospital drawings’ (1947 – 49) and a series (to which the present work belongs) of models and dancers in the nude (1947 – 51).
While it was not unusual for Hepworth to work from a single model, she was fascinated by relationships between figures, as we bear witness to here, where three different poses adopted by a male and a female model in close relation to each other, have been recorded side by side across the board. As opposed to the fixed, premeditated poses that Hepworth had asked her models to assume for her life drawings in the 1920s, at this time she would ‘usually get dancers as models and ask them to move about, to limber up, to relax, and to move and move until I know them all the way round.’ 1
Reminiscent of Rodin’s Cambodian dancers and the ‘Three Graces’ of Botticelli’s Primavera, c.1480, the present work conveys a sense of fluid movement and intimacy between the figures. The rhythm of the figures’ movements are echoed in the rhythmic line of Hepworth's drawing style. Not only do the outlines of the two figures overlap in areas such as the legs and feet, but there is also a doubling or blurring of these lines, suggesting the trace of the figure’s actions.
Though Hepworth herself often referred to these works on board as drawings, they may more accurately be described as paintings, albeit of a unique kind. Hepworth was in the habit of preparing her boards with gesso, which she would apply using a brush and then scrape back, possibly with a razor blade, before scumbling with oil or gouache in muted colours (here, white, yellow and blue). This method, which was altogether more sculptural than painterly, created a textured, organic-feeling surface with ‘a particular kind of ‘bite’’ upon which Hepworth would draw in pencil, something she likened to ‘incising on slate’ and the painted surface would often be scraped or rubbed back as the drawing proceeded.2 3

1 The artist cited in Alan Wilkinson, The Drawings of Barbara Hepworth, Lund Humphries, Surrey & USA, 2015, p90
2 The artist cited in A. Wilkinson, 2015, ibid, p65
3 Ibid