The breaking wave / and the muscle as it contracts / obey the same law. / Delicate line / gathers the body’s total strength / in a bold balance. / Shall my soul meet / so severe a curve, journeying / on its way to form?

Dame Barbara Hepworth, whose lyrical forms made her one of the most influential sculptors of the mid-20th century and whose abstract sculptures were among the earliest produced in England, was born this day in 1903.