Pelagos

Item

Title
Pelagos
Description
Pelagos (‘sea’ in Greek) was inspired by a view of the bay at St Ives in Cornwall, where two stretches of land surround the sea on either side. The hollowed-out sculpture has a spiral form resembling a shell, a wave or the roll of a hill. Hepworth wanted the taut strings to express ‘the tension I felt between myself and the sea, the wind or the hills’. She moved to Cornwall with her husband, painter Ben Nicholson in 1939 and produced some of her best-known sculpture inspired by its wild landscape.
Subject
Sculpture
Date Created
1946
Medium
Elm and strings on oak base
elm (wood)
oak (wood)
Extent
14 1/2" x 15 1/4" x 13(430 x 460 x 385cm)

15.2 kg
Rights
© Bowness
Rights Holder
Musée Rodin (Paris, France): Barbara Hepworth at the Rodin Museum
Identifier
Bio_Sculpt008_DBH_Pelagos
Source
Tate Modern
Item sets
The Biomorphism