Date: 18/05/2004
Source: Wakefield Council
Wakefield Council announced today that the City’s prestigious new Gallery will be named after the international sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth, who was born in Wakefield in 1903.
The Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield is being designed by David Chipperfield Architects and will be built on the dramatic and prominent site beside the River Calder in the Waterfront regeneration area. A major attraction in the new Gallery will be the display of 30 original plaster sculptures by Barbara Hepworth which will be shown alongside the artist’s finished sculptures and interpretative displays on her creative process and life and work.
The Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield will create the first purpose-built gallery spaces in the District to show the work of many of the greatest British artists of the 20th Century, including Henry Moore, who was born within ten miles of Wakefield in Castleford. The existing Art Gallery’s collection, which spans the whole of the last century and has important Victorian and earlier paintings, including major work by James Tissot, Ben Nicholson, Walter Sickert, Anthony Caro, Terry Frost and Maggi Hambling, will be transferred to The Hepworth Gallery making it full accessible to the public. In addition there will be an ambitious programme of temporary exhibitions and events and inclusive educational activities which will involve local people and visitors from further afield.
John Foster, Chief Executive of Wakefield Council, said, “It is particularly appropriate for the art gallery to be named The Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield as this celebrates Wakefield as the birthplace of modern British sculpture; as Barbara Hepworth was born in the city in 1903, five years after the birth in nearby Castleford of the other major sculptor of the last century, Henry Moore."
The development of the Hepworth Gallery will support the conservation and regeneration of the historic mill and warehouse buildings in the Waterfront area which reflect Wakefield’s industrial heritage and the former importance of the historic waterway that runs past the site of the Gallery."
