Provenance 
Commissioned by Air Commodore Whitney Straight, C.B.E., M.C., D.F.C., London.
Sir Hugh Casson, R.A., London.
Sold to benefit The Royal Academy Hugh Casson Drawing Prize; Christie's, London, 24 November 2000, lot 47.
Acquired from Waddington Galleries, London in January 2004.

 Exhibited
London, Gimpel Fils, Barbara Hepworth, May - July 1966, no. 16, another cast exhibited.
London, Tate Gallery, Barbara Hepworth, April - May 1968, no. 161, another cast exhibited.
St Ives, Guildhall, Exhibition on the Occasion of the Conferment of the Honorary Freedom of the Borough of St Ives on Bernard Leach and Barbara Hepworth, September - October 1968, another cast exhibited, ex. cat.
Galashiels, Arts Council of Great Britain, Scottish College of Textiles, Barbara Hepworth: A selection of small bronzes and prints, April - May 1978, no. 17, another cast exhibited: this exhibition travelled to Inverness, Museum and Art Gallery, June 1978; Dundee, Museum and Art Gallery, September 1978; Milngavie, Lillie Art Gallery, September - October 1978; Hawick, Museum and Art Gallery, October - November 1978; and Ayr, Maclaurin Art Gallery, November - December 1978.
Swansea, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Museum, Barbara Hepworth: A Sculptor's Landscape, October - November 1982, no. 17, another cast exhibited: this exhibition travelled to Bangor, Art Gallery, November - December 1982; Wrexham, Library Art Centre, December 1982 - January 1983; and Isle of Man, Manx Museum, February 1983.
Salisbury, New Art Centre, Barbara Hepworth: Polished Bronzes, December 2001 - February 2002, exhibition not numbered, another cast exhibited.

Literature
A. BOWNESS (ed.). The Complete Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960-69, London, 1971, p. 41, no. 399, pl. 139, another cast illustrated.
Exhibition catalogue. Barbara Hepworth: A Sculptor's Landscape, Swansea, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Museum, 1982, n.p., no. 17, another cast illustrated.
A.M. HAMMACHER. The Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth, London, 1998, p. 153, 210, pl. 130, another cast illustrated.
S. Bowness (ed.), Barbara Hepworth: The Plasters The Gift to Wakefield, Farnham, 2011, pp. 56, 61, 142, 144, no. 25, another cast illustrated.
S. BOWNESS. Barbara Hepworth: The Sculptor in the Studio, London, 2017, p. 94, fig. 93, another cast illustrated.

NOTES

Conceived and cast in 1965, Trophy (flight) was a commissioned sculpture by Air Commodore Whitney Straight, C.B.E., M.C., D.F.C., in order to recognise the achievement and status of women in aviation.
An aviator, grand-prix racing driver, and decorated war hero, Straight became a businessman specialising in operating airfields and chairman of the Royal Aero Club in 1945.
He loaned the award to London’s Royal Aeronautical Society in 1967 where recipients of the annual prize (including pilots Anne Burns and Yvonne Pope Sintes in 1967 and 1974, and engineer Peggy Hodges, O.B.E. in 1970) received the trophy and a cheque for £200.

Cast in a small set of two, plus one artist’s cast, the present work holds unique historical significance and is a wonderful demonstration of Hepworth’s rich, highly polished bronze sculptures.
The carved plaster of the present work is held in The Hepworth Wakefield collection, gifted by the artist’s estate.