Celebrating the generous gift of Barbara Hepworth's plasters to The Hepworth Wakefield by the Hepworth Estate, this groundbreaking publication combines a fully illustrated catalogue of the sculptor's surviving prototypes in plaster, and occasionally aluminium, with a detailed analysis of her working methods and a comprehensive history of her work in bronze. In addition, insights into the building which will be home to the collection are provided through essays exploring the history of The Hepworth and, in a contribution by David Chipperfield, the design of the new museum by his architectural practice. A fascinating account of the sculptor's connections with Wakefield Art Gallery also features. The Hepworth's collection of over 40 unique, unknown sculptures are the surviving working models from which editions of bronzes were cast. They range in size from works that can be held in the hand to monumental sculptures, including the Winged Figure for John Lewis's Oxford Street headquarters. The majority are original plasters on which the artist worked with her own hands and to scale. Providing a unique insight into Hepworth's working processes, on which little has been written, Barbara Hepworth: The Plasters will enhance appreciation of her work as a whole. Drawing extensively on archival records and photographs, this publication is an important source for information about a significant collection of work, the gallery which houses it and Hepworth in general.

Barbara Hepworth's work and ideas are illuminated in her own lucid and eloquent words in this first collection of her writings and conversations. The book makes available much that is out of print and inaccessible, and includes a significant number of unpublished texts. A surprisingly large body of work, it spans almost the whole of Hepworth's artistic life, showing her innate gift for language and desire to communicate to the public. Alongside the writings are Hepworth's lectures and speeches, a selection of interviews and conversations with writers as well as radio and television broadcasts. The collection sheds new light on Hepworth's life, her working practices, the sources of her inspiration, the breadth of her intellectual interests and her deep engagement with contemporary politics and society. The illustrations include manuscripts and archive photographs from Hepworth's own collection.

Barbara Hepworth: The Sculptor in the Studio is the first study devoted to Hepworth's St Ives studio in which the centrality of Trewyn Studio and garden to her art and life is brought to the fore. 'It affects my whole life & work most profoundly', she wrote to a friend in 1949 shortly before acquiring it. A history and a portrait of a unique place, the book illuminates the ways in which the place and the work are bound together. It explores Hepworth's working environment and the development of her practice over a period of 25 years. The studio, and especially the garden that Hepworth shaped, was the primary and ideal context in which her sculptures were viewed. Following Hepworth's death in 1975, Trewyn Studio was opened as the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, fulfilling the hopes she had expressed at the end of her life. The adaptation of Hepworth's studio-home to create the Museum is examined in detail. The Museum was given to the Tate Gallery in 1980, becoming the first of Tate's outstations and helping to lay the foundations for Tate St Ives. It contains the largest group of Hepworth's works, permanently on display in the place in which they were created. Here the visitor is closest to Hepworth's work and to the sources of her inspiration.