Although she lived and worked in Hampstead in the 1930s (the Royal Academy has a useful guide to the modernist artists and architects who were there at that time), Barbara Hepworth's working life is most closely associated with St Ives in Cornwall. Her modest house and studio, together with the marvellous sculpture garden, are now part of Tate St Ives. A visit is a marvellous way to gain an insight into her life and work.

Barbara Hepworth's artistic achievements are exceptional but her personal and domestic life is also fascinating and the subject of many articles and books both during her lifetime and after. She is one of the most interesting female artists of the twentieth century and fought against the idea that the "pram in the hall" (with triplets in it, in her case  plus an older son) should stifle her immense talent and drive. She wrote, "I found one had to do some work every day, even at midnight, because either you are professional or you're not... provided one always does some work each day, even a single half hour, so that the images grow in your mind". Here she is in the mid-1930s with her children and husband, Ben Nicholson.

 Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red  (1943) has been saved for the nation, this week on the Post we have Barbara Hepworth (1903-75). The wooden carving with rare use of colour marked a breakthrough at a difficult point in her life when she was dealing with the demands of a young family compounded by limited time, money, and materials due to the war. It will now be on permanent display at The Hepworth in Wakefield, where she was born and grew up. 

Interior at the Cottage is by Luke Martineau (b1970) who frequently paints domestic subjects. It illustrates how, in so many ways, kitchens are timeless and unchanging; this one could be contemporary or from one of several centuries. 

Violet in the Kitchen (1995) by Hector McDonnell (b1947) encapsulates the way in which so much domestic and family life happens in the kitchen now that it is often no longer separate from the rest of the household. In the past, family portraits would not have been set in a kitchen, but now that it is where  homework, crafts, eating, reading, playing, and ever-changing tablescapes all take place, it has become a natural backdrop.

Alice Mumford (b1965) is based in Hayle near St Ives in Cornwall and not too far from Penzance and Newlyn; she often captures the lovely light there in her paintings of domestic subjects in the same way the Newlyn School artists did. While tables, ranges, and dressers have long been be included in kitchen interiors, new-fangled appliances such as dishwashers also have their own merits. They create spontaneous and ever-changing still lifes for Alice Mumford who says, "There are excellent dark shadows in the back of the dishwasher that contrast with the light falling on the variety of cups, saucers, mugs, plates, knives and forks. Its fiendishly difficult to paint as there is so much going on". This is Around Again (2025).