To celebrate the 10-year anniversary of The Hepworth Wakefield, the gallery are presenting the largest exhibition of iconic British sculptor Barbara Hepworth since her death in 1975.
The exhibition includes the modern abstract carvings that launched Barbara Hepworth’s career in the 1920s and 1930s and the strung sculptures of the 1940s and 1950s to her later large-scale bronze works. There will be works from private collections that haven’t been seen publicly for over fifty years, as well as rarely seen drawings, paintings and fabric designs.
Hepworth’s iconic pieces will be accompanied by new commissions by Tacita Dean and Veronica Ryan, exploring the ideas and themes that that still resonate today, as well as work by op art painter Bridget Riley in dialogue with Hepworth’s work from the same period (1960s).
A particular highlight of the exhibition includes the 1935 abstract work Three Forms, which Barbara Hepworth made shortly after giving birth to triplets. This piece is an example of her work depicting the human form in sculpture, as well as the influence her personal life had on the creation of her art.
The exhibition will particularly focus on Barbara Hepworth’s wide-ranging interests, from music, dance and theatre to religion, politics and space exploration. Objects and photographs from stage productions and events that influenced her will be displayed alongside the works that came from those passions.
