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
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