Dame Barbara Hepworth DBE (January 10, 1903 - May 20, 1975, christened Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth) was a major British sculptor and artist of the twentieth century.

She was a contemporary and friend of Henry Moore.

Hepworth was born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, attended Wakefield Girls High School, and studied at the Leeds School of Art (where she met Moore) and the Royal College of Art. She later studied for a period in Italy.

One of her most prestigious works is Single Form, in memory of Dag Hammarskjold, at the United Nations building in New York City.

Hepworth's first marriage was to the sculptor John Skeaping. Her second marriage was to the painter Ben Nicholson. They married in 1938; they divorced in 1951.

She was made a Dame in 1965, ten years before her death during a fire in her St Ives studio in Cornwall, aged seventy-two. The studio and her home now form the Barbara Hepworth Museum.

As well as at the Barbara Hepworth Museum, more of Hepworth's work will be on display at The Hepworth, a museum currently under construction in Wakefield. An opening in 2009 is anticipated. Her work may also be seen at St. Catherine's College, Oxford, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Bretton, West Yorkshire; Clare College, Churchill College and New Hall, Cambridge; and on view in or attached to the John Lewis department store, Oxford Street (see picture); and Kenwood House, both in London. Her 1966 work "Construction (Crucifixion): Homage to Mondrian" can be seen in the grounds of Winchester Cathedral next to the The Pilgrims' School. The Tate Gallery owns many of her works.

-Wikipedia