Turning Forms

About

Turning Forms (BH 166) is a concrete sculpture by Barbara Hepworth, one of her first public commissions, made in 1950 for the Festival of Britain. It was one of two Hepworth commissions for the Festival: the other was a sculpture of abstract standing figures, Contrapuntal Forms, now in Harlow. Turning Forms has been sited at a school in St Albans since 1953. Both of Hepworth's sculptures were listed at Grade II in 1998.

Like most sculptures for the Festival of Britain, Contrapuntal Forms was commissioned by the Arts Council, but unusually Turning Forms was commissioned and paid for directly by the Festival board, at the instigation of the architect Jane Drew, to complement her design for the Thameside Restaurant. Hepworth made the sculpture in collaboration with Drew, unusually adopting a Constructivist style reminiscent of the work of Naum Gabo, such as his later kinetic sculpture Revolving Torsion. Hepworth returned to a similar theme with a similarly-named drawing in 1957, held by Kettle's Yard in Cambridge.