Barbara Hepworth married Skeaping on 13 May 1925 in Florence. In Italy, Hepworth learned how to carve marble from the master sculptor, Giovanni Ardini. Hepworth and Skeaping returned to London in 1926, where they exhibited their works together from their flat. Their son Paul was born in London in 1929. Her early work was highly interested in abstraction and art movements on the continent. In 1933, Hepworth travelled with Ben Nicholson to France, where they visited the studios of Jean Arp, Pablo Picasso, and Constantin Brâncuşi. Hepworth later became involved with the Paris-based art movement, Abstraction-Création. In 1933, Hepworth co-founded the Unit
Jacob Epstein (spy) the Gnome Project, which was the secret plan to free Ramón Mercader, Leon Trotsky's murderer, from jail. Epstein is referenced in Venona decrypt 800 New York to Moscow 28 May 1943, and another decrypt on 30 May 1943. The material cites Epstein as having placed two agents in the prison where Mercader was held. The plan called for moving Mercader out of Mexico once the jailbreak was made. Venona decrypt 193–194 Mexico City to Moscow, 14 March 1944 identifies Anna Colloms, while on a courier mission to Mexico, reporting the KGB detected surveillance of Ruth Wilson, Epstein's wife, and Colloms,