Wakefield gallery reaches £ 3.8M to secure Hepworth Peace

An art gallery has successfully acquired enough funds to buy Dame Barbara Hepworth Sculpture, after reaching a target of £ 3.8m.

The sculpture will go on a permanent public performance in Wakefield after vacating the August 27 deadline to raise the sculpture Pale Blue and Red Fund with color (oval form).

The gallery received more than 2,800 donations from the public, as well as a grant of £ 1.89m from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and £ 750,000 from Art Fund.

The 1943 work, which was in private ownership, was placed under a temporary export bar, a British museum was given the opportunity to achieve it after being considered very important to leave the UK.

Olivia Calling, an interim director and CEO at Hepworth Wakefield, said that Dame Barbara would be “pleased”, so many people ensured that the piece could be displayed in his home city.

“Barbara Hepworth often talked about the need to be a part of a community and its active development,” she said.

“We are very grateful to the generosity that people have shown to help in bringing this extremely rare and important work in Wakefield.”

The sculpture was engraved during World War II, when Dame Barbara lived with his young family in St. Ewes, Cornwal.

It is one of the wood carvings made by the Vacfield -born artist during the 1940s, and one of the first wood carvings he made the characteristic of string.

Since its construction, in private ownership and rarely publicly seen, the sculpture was auctioned by Christie to £ 3.5m in 2024.

Gallery has stated that it intends to give pieces to other museums and galleries in the UK, “opening access to people everywhere”.

The appeal was supported by artists and Creatives including Sir Antony Gormali, Anish Kapoor, Jonathan Anderson, Richard Dekon, Katy Helle, Veronica Ryan, Joana Scanlan and Dame Rechhel Vitradard.

Art Fund director Jenny Waldman said the piece was “endless to look from all angles”.

“This is actually a special and important work of art,” he said.

“It is a wooden object, it is white with a beautiful yellow blue color, perhaps reminiscent of cornwal and beautiful blues, and it has colored wires in the middle.”

Ms. Helle, an art historian, who supported the appeal, stated that the sculptures of Hepworth actually covers the British landscape “.

“It was during war, rare material was available for him and he had to do with him,” he said.