Date:2006
Source: Wakefield & District Education and Training Year Book 2006
Waterfront development creates a splash
The regeneration of Wakefield’s historic Waterfront, is a key priority for Wakefield Council as part of the Region’s Urban Regeneration Programme for Wakefield City and wider District.
With an inward investment of £125m, the Waterfront scheme will substantially transform the southern gateway to the City adding a new cultural dimension and revitalising the historic waterfront. The scheme has attracted major public sector funding partners with over £27m of match funding secured or allocated for The Hepworth Wakefield and wider Waterfront masterplan from Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund Stage One Pass, European Regional Development Fund and Yorkshire Forward.
A major public attraction will be The Hepworth Wakefield, a 5500m2 world-class gallery and centre for creative arts designed by international architect David Chipperfield which will open in 2008. The £26m scheme includes a new pedestrian bridge over the River Calder, to improve linkages between the Waterfront and Wakefield City Centre, together with a dedicated car park and coach drop off point on Thornes Lane. The gallery site also includes a Grade II Listed Watermill which will be conserved to provide interpretation of the history of the mill and waterfront and create managed workspace.
The £100m masterplan, covering 10 acres, is being developed by CTP St James in partnership with British Waterways and Wakefield Council. This mixed use development will include the restoration and conservation of a number of fine and significant historical structures such as the 18th century Grade II* Listed Calder & Hebble Navigation Warehouse, Grade II Listed Phoenix and Rutland Mills complex. The historic buildings will be sympathetically restored and, together with a range of new buildings, will provide an imaginative mix of around 500,000 sq ft (50,000 m2) of high quality riverside apartments, office and leisure accommodation including restaurants, cafés, courtyards, landscaped gardens and public spaces.
The Hepworth, Wakefield: A new creative zone
Wakefield Council is developing The Hepworth, Wakefield as a major new art gallery and centre for the creative arts on Wakefield’s historic waterfront. It will be a place where everyone can see the work of famous artists, enjoy Wakefield and Yorkshire’s heritage, get involved in creative and learning activities or just relax in the informal spaces. The Hepworth, Wakefield will replace Wakefield Art Gallery in 2008.
Designed by the leading British architect David Chipperfield, The Hepworth, Wakefield will be on a very visible and exciting site next to the River Calder at the southern gateway to the city. It will be the major building in an area of the city that is being transformed from derelict industrial site to a thriving and lively mix of restored mills and warehouses and contemporary architecture.
At the centre of The Hepworth, Wakefield will fittingly be the unique collection of 30 original plasters used by Wakefield born Dame Barbara Hepworth when casting her bronze sculptures and donated by the Hepworth family trust. As well as displaying this major collection, The Hepworth, Wakefield will open up public access to Wakefield’s important collection of works by many of the most significant British artists of the 20th century. The most notable works are by Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore and pride of place goes to Moore's Reclining Figure carved in Elmwood in 1936 and Hepworth’s early carvings, including Mother and Child (1934) and Pierced Hemisphere 1 (1937).
Such pioneering works are just a small part of a collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints from the 16th to 21st centuries including works by major artists such as James Tissot, Roger Fry, Duncan Grant, Ben Nicholson and Anthony Caro. The Hepworth will also show the definitive collection of views of Wakefield by artists attracted to the city and the invaluable Gott Collection of artist’s views of Yorkshire and beyond.
Creativity, learning and education are at the heart of this exciting £26m project. The Hepworth will have a dedicated suite of rooms for school and community use including wet and dry workshop space, meeting room, indoor picnic area, display space and cloakrooms. There will also be an artist studio to enable artist to work in residence within the galleries.
For more information or to be added to the project mailing list contact: The Hepworth, Wakefield, Wakefield Art Gallery, Wentworth Terrace, Wakefield WF1 3QW. Email hepworthwakefield@wakefield.gov.uk; Telephone 01924 305796.
Barbara Hepworth, 1903 – 1975
Born in Wakefield in 1903, Barbara Hepworth was the eldest of four children. Her father, Herbert, became Assistant County Surveyor and an Alderman of the City.
She trained in sculpture at Leeds School of Art (1920-1) and then at the Royal College of Art (1921-4). Along with Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson (whom she would marry in 1938), she was at the centre of a group of artists who created a revolutionary new approach to European abstract sculpture in the 1930s.
Her use of abstract, negative space, epitomised by her 1937 marble work Pierced Hemisphere, in which a hole was carved through the centre of the sculpture inaugurated one of the most important formal features of her, and also Henry Moore's subsequent, work. Not only was she pioneering work in sculpture but she was also experimenting with collage, photograms and prints.
During the World War II, she evacuated to St. Ives in Cornwall where she set up a studio forming a focus in 1949 for the establishment of the Penwith Society of Artists with Nicholson, Peter Lanyon and others, and helping to attract international attention to the group's exhibitions.
Barbara Hepworth received numerous public commissions, (in 1964, Single Form was erected outside the United Nations building, New York as a memorial to the Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld), and awards throughout her career (including the Grand Prix at the São Paulo Bienal in 1959).
She became a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1965.
After a long battle with cancer, she died in a fire at her St Ives home on 20 May 1975. The studio was subsequently designated the Barbara Hepworth Museum in the following year and came under the control of the Tate Gallery in 1980.
Wakefield Art Gallery has a number of her works in their collection, including Kneeling Figure, 1932, and Mother & Child, 1934. Three figures from the Family of Man series are situated in Castrop Rauxel Square - opposite Wakefield's County Hall where Hepworth's father had worked.
