Editing Barbara Hepworth (section)

===Early career===
[[File:1932 Barbara Hepworth Pierced Form, Paul Laib, photographer, courtauld museum.jpg|thumb|right| Barbara Hepworth, ''Pierced Form,'' 1932 (pink alabaster, original destroyed {{circa|1944}})<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hepworth |first1=Barbara |title=Pierced Form (1932, destroyed ca. 1945)|url=http://barbarahepworth.org.uk/sculptures/1932/pierced-form/ |publisher=Barbara Hepworth Estate |date=1932}}</ref>]]
Following her studies at the RCA, Hepworth travelled to [[Florence]], Italy, in 1924 on a [[West Riding]] Travel Scholarship.<ref name=gale/> Hepworth was also the runner-up for the [[Prix-de-Rome]], which the sculptor [[John Skeaping]] won.<ref name=gale/> After travelling with him to Siena and Rome, Hepworth married Skeaping in May 1925 in Florence.<ref name=bio/> In Italy, Hepworth learned how to carve marble from sculptor Giovanni Ardini.<ref name=bio/> Hepworth and Skeaping returned to London in 1926, where they exhibited their works together from their flat.<ref name=bio/> Their son Paul was born in London in 1929.<ref name=gale/> In 1931, Hepworth met and fell in love with abstract painter [[Ben Nicholson]]; however, both were still married at the time.<ref>{{cite web| date=10 July 2015|title=The personal and professional life of Barbara Hepworth |url=https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives-behind-artist-barbara-hepworth-work/|access-date=25 August 2020|website=The National Archives blog}}</ref> Hepworth filed for divorce from Skeaping that year;<ref>{{cite web|date=1931|title=Divorce Court File: 1565. Appellant: Jocelyn Barbara Skeaping. Respondent: John Rattenbury Skeaping...|url=http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C8064829|access-date=16 March 2022|website=The National Archives}}</ref> they were divorced in March 1933.<ref name=bio/>

Her early work was highly interested in abstraction and art movements on the continent. In 1931, Hepworth was the first to sculpt the pierced figures that are characteristic of both her own work and, later, that of Henry Moore.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Winterson |first1=Jeanette |title=The hole of life |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/dame-barbara-hepworth-1274/hole-life|journal=Tate Magazine |issue=5|publisher=Tate Gallery |location=London}}</ref> They would lead in the path to modernism in sculpture. In 1933, Hepworth travelled with Nicholson to France, where they visited the studios of [[Jean Arp]], [[Pablo Picasso]], and [[Constantin Brâncuși]].<ref name=bio/> Hepworth later became involved with the Paris-based art movement, [[Abstraction-Création]].<ref name=eb/> In 1933, Hepworth co-founded the [[Unit One]] art movement with Nicholson and [[Paul Nash (artist)|Paul Nash]], the critic [[Herbert Read]], and the architect [[Wells Coates]].<ref name=nash/> The movement sought to unite Surrealism and abstraction in British art.<ref name=nash/>

Hepworth also helped raise awareness of continental artists amongst the British public. In 1937, she designed the layout for ''[[Circle: An International Survey of Constructivist Art]]'', a 300-page book that surveyed Constructivist artists and that was published in London and edited by Nicholson, [[Naum Gabo]], and [[Leslie Martin]].<ref name=peggy/>

Hepworth, with Nicholson, gave birth to triplets in 1934: Rachel, Sarah, and [[Simon Nicholson|Simon]]. Hepworth, atypically, found a way to both take care of her children and continue producing her art. "A woman artist", she argued, "is not deprived by cooking and having children, nor by nursing children with measles (even in triplicate)&nbsp;– one is in fact nourished by this rich life, provided one always does some work each day; even a single half hour, so that the images grow in one's mind."<ref name="guardian"/> Hepworth married Nicholson on 17&nbsp;November 1938 at [[Hampstead]] Register Office in north London, following his divorce from his wife [[Winifred Nicholson|Winifred]].<ref name=alan/> Rachel and Simon also became artists.<ref name=riggs/>