Two Forms (Divided Circle)

Two Forms (Divided Circle) is a bronze sculpture by Barbara Hepworth, designed in 1969. Six numbered copies were cast, plus one (0/6) retained by the sculptor.

The sculpture is late work by Hepworth, created only 6 years before her death in a fire at her studio in St Ives in 1975. It includes two vertical bronze semi-circles forming a broken circle approximately 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) across, each pieced pierced by one large hole. Both elements are welded to a bronze base. All three elements are hollow, and were cast in London by Morris Singer.

Hepworth designed the work after being diagnosed with cancer in 1966. She wanted the viewer's body to be engaged with her work, saying: "You can climb through the Divided Circle – you don't need to do it physically to experience it."

Hepworth's own cast (0/6) was donated to the Tate Gallery by Hepworth's estate in 1980 and is displayed at the Barbara Hepworth Museum in St Ives.

One cast (5/6) was acquired by Greater London Council and displayed in Dulwich Park from 1970 until it was cut from it plinth by scrap metal thieves in December 2011. It was insured for £500,000, but its scrap value was estimated at perhaps £750. Southwark Council offered a reward of £1,000, and the Hepworth Estate increased the reward to £5,000, for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the thieves.

Other casts are displayed:

in front of the Senate House at the University of Bolton (cast 4/6, on loan from Bolton Museum)
in the Fellows’ Garden at Clare College, Cambridge (on loan from the Hepworth Estate)
at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in Illinois
at the Lola Beer Ebner Sculpture Garden in Tel Aviv
in a private collection in the USA

Hepworth also made a series of nine maquettes about 14.5 inches (370 mm) tall, Maquette for Divided Circle, cast in polished bronze.

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