The Hepworth Wakefield, United Kingdom

The Hepworth Wakefield is an art gallery in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. The gallery is situated on the south side of the River Calder and takes its name from artist and sculptor Barbara Hepworth who was born and educated in the city.

The Hepworth Wakefield is an award-winning art gallery in the heart of Yorkshire, set within Wakefield’s historic waterfront overlooking the River Calder. Designed by the acclaimed David Chipperfield Architects, the gallery opened in May 2011. The gallery was designed by British architect David Chipperfield, who won an architectural design competition managed by RIBA Competitions and was built by Laing O’Rourke with funding from Wakefield Council, Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The gallery presents major exhibitions of the best international modern and contemporary art and has dedicated galleries exploring Hepworth’s art and working process. Yorkshire Forward, the Homes and Communities Agency, and the European Regional Development Fund have also supported the building of the gallery alongside a number of charitable trusts, corporations and private individuals. The Hepworth Wakefield is a registered charity under English law.

The Hepworth Wakefield is home to Wakefield’s art collection – an impressive compendium of modern British art, including works by Ben Nicholson, Partick Heron, L.S. Lowry, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore as well as work by significant contemporary artists such as Frank Auerbach, Maggi Hambling, Anthea Hamilton, Martin Parr and Eva Rothschild.

The gallery cost £35 million to build. Five weeks after opening it had received 100,000 visitors. In May 2012 it celebrated its first birthday, having received over 500,000 visitors in the year. In October 2015, the gallery launched the £30,000 biennial The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture as part of the celebrations marking its 5th anniversary.

Bringing art to life by making people think, feel and be inspired.

The Hepworth Wakefield is an art gallery, museum and creative space as unique as the woman who inspired it.

Rooted in the heart of Yorkshire, our significant collection and compelling programme explore the connections between the local and the global, and blend the contemporary with the historical.

Hepworth Wakefield’s iconic building embodies Hepworth Wakefield’s spirit of progression and regeneration, allowing us to create exceptional and original art experiences.

Vision
To be recognised as one of the world’s leading art galleries, creating unforgettable art experiences for all, while inspiring positive change locally.

Mission
To create experiences that inspire, captivate, surprise and enhance everyone’s lives.

Collection
The Hepworth Wakefield celebrates Yorkshire’s heritage as the birthplace of modern British sculpture through the achievements of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore – two of the most important artists of the twentieth century, both born in the Wakefield district. The gallery was built in 2011 by David Chipperfield Architects to house the city’s nationally important collection of modern and contemporary British art.

Wakefield’s art collection consists of more than 5,000 works, at the core of which is a significant group of works by Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.

From its foundation in 1923, the former Wakefield Art Gallery adopted an ambitious collecting policy with a core aim to nurture an understanding of contemporary art.

Works were acquired by the leading artists of the time, who have become synonymous with shaping modern British art. These include Hepworth’s ‘Mother and Child’ (1934) and Moore’s ‘Reclining Figure’ (1936) from an important period in the history of British art, during which many artists such as Paul Nash, Victor Pasmore and John Piper began to experiment with abstraction. Other leading British artists represented in the collection include Aileen Agar, David Bomberg, Roger Fry, Harold Gilman, Ben Nicholson, Patrick Heron, Lucie Rie and William Scott.

At the heart of the collection is the celebrated Hepworth Family Gift, a remarkable group of the artist’s surviving working models for her later bronze commissions.

Architecture
When designing The Hepworth Wakefield, David Chipperfield Architects responded imaginatively to the gallery’s waterfront setting and industrial heritage of the site. The gallery is able to source the majority of its heating and cooling from the river’s flow.

The design of the galleries allows the introduction of daylight through skylights and imposing floor-to-ceiling windows. The windows offer visitors wonderful views of the River Calder, important local landmarks such as the medieval Chantry Chapel and Wakefield Cathedral, and the Emley Moor Transmitting Station tower, the tallest freestanding structure in the United Kingdom.

The building’s façades have been constructed of pigmented concrete which was created in-situ. This gives the building a sculptural appearance, which echoes the shapes and forms in many of Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures. The angles of the gallery’s roof are echoed in the angles of the bespoke font and logo design created for The Hepworth Wakefield by APFEL.

Garden:
The Hepworth Wakefield Riverside Gallery Garden which will be one of the UK’s largest free public gardens and will transform the surroundings to the gallery.

We’re working with acclaimed landscape architect, Tom Stuart-Smith to create one of the UK’s largest free public gardens. The garden, measuring approximately 6000 square metres, will be developed in the space between our building and neighbouring Victorian mill buildings.

Tom Stuart-Smith’s proposed garden is a modern, romantic response to this varied post-industrial location with its riverside setting, robust industrial buildings and the angular sculptural form of The Hepworth Wakefield, instilling this with a naturalism which reflects Barbara Hepworth’s deeply felt connection with landscape.

A wall will separate the garden from the main road, with the open spaces composed of paving and lawn, reflecting the ways in which people use space and move through it, sometimes stopping to chat or look, sometimes moving in a hurry and with variety of places for people to sit. The variety of open spaces also gives flexibility to the garden so it can be used for medium sized events.

Value:
Being open means we are inclusive, we collaborate freely and fairly, and are generous with our time and knowledge. We are welcoming and make the experiences we offer accessible to everyone.

The Hepworth Wakefield strive to achieve the highest possible quality. Being world-class is our goal, and everyone has a role to play in ensuring that excellence runs through every aspect of our work.