The Hepworth Wakefield
Barbara Hepworth and modern British art in a riverside building by David Chipperfield.
The Hepworth Wakefield is a riverside art gallery on the south bank of the River Calder, named after the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who was born in Wakefield. It opened in May 2011 as the successor to Wakefield Art Gallery, and its cluster of ten angular, pigmented-concrete blocks was designed by David Chipperfield following a RIBA competition.
The gallery combines Wakefield's civic collection, spanning British modernism and beyond, with a changing programme of major exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. A highlight is the group of Hepworth's plaster and aluminium working models given by her family, and the gallery was named Art Fund Museum of the Year in 2017.
Highlights
- Hepworth's original plaster and aluminium working models
- British modernism by Moore, Nicholson and Nash
- Chipperfield's concrete blocks above the River Calder weir
- Riverside garden and seasonal markets
