Barbara Hepworth civil engineer for the West Riding County Council, who in 1921 became County Surveyor. Hepworth attended Wakefield Girls' High School, where she was awarded music prizes at the age of twelve as noted by Sophie Bowness in "Rhythm of the Stones: Barbara Hepworth and Music" and won a scholarship to and studied at the Leeds School of Art from 1920. It was there that she met her fellow student, Henry Moore. They became friends and established a friendly rivalry that lasted professionally for many years. Hepworth was the first to sculpt the pierced figures that are characteristic of works by
Barbara Hepworth her large-scale bronzes. Her eldest son, Paul, was killed on 13 February 1953 in a plane crash while serving with the Royal Air Force in Thailand. A memorial to him, "Madonna and Child", is in the parish church of St Ives. Exhausted, in part from her son's death, Hepworth travelled to Greece with her good friend Margaret Gardiner in August 1954. They visited Athens, Delphi, and many of the Aegean Islands. When Hepworth returned to St Ives from Greece in August 1954, she found that Gardiner had sent her a large shipment of Nigerian guarea hardwood. Although she received only