The West Yorkshire Museum Hepworth Wakefield made international headlines last month when it would launch a fundraiser to keep Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) in the country’s sculpture. Sculpture with color (oval form) light blue and red (1943) sold to a private buyer for £3.8 million in Christie’s private buyer last year, but the British government set up an export bar at work so the agency could not match the amount paid by the buyer until August. The deadline is approaching, but the museum and its partner Art Foundation have launched a fundraising page with less than £440,000 left in raising costs. We caught up with Eleanor Clayton, curator of Hepworth Wakefield.
Your efforts to keep Sculpture with color (oval form) light blue and red Very unique in England! How did this idea come about?
Sculpture with color (oval form) light blue and red It has been in a private collection since Hepworth was produced in 1943, and the public has the opportunity to think it is rare. After the sculpture was sold at Christie last year, the British government placed it under the temporary export bar of the British government to give British museums a chance to get it for everyone to enjoy. Export columns are only on August 27 this year, and the museum needs to raise the full sales price of £3.8 million.
Hepworth Wakefield is the ideal residence for this incredible sculpture, but we don’t have an acquisition budget and it’s entirely up to philanthropy to grow that collection, so I think it was impossible for us in the first place. But one of Barbara Hepworth’s granddaughters writes, encourage us to pursue it. This led to a positive conversation with the Arts Fund and the National Lottery Heritage Foundation, which was so excited about the prospect that I began to think we could do it! So far, we have received significant support from these and other organizations such as the Headley Trust, as well as over 2,000 donations from the public.
Why is this work worthy of such an effort? Why is it so important?
Sculpture with color (oval form) light blue and red It is one of the most important and beautiful sculptures in Hepworth. This is my personal favorite. It was made after Hepworth had become a pioneer in abstract sculpture in the 1930s, becoming friends with and displaying other great modern artists such as Naum Gabo, Piet Mondrian and Alexander Calder. In 1939, just as she built her career, she announced World War II. To escape the impending blitz, Hepworth left London and moved to Cornwall with his family, using only a few tools and the gypsum prototype for the work. During the first few years of the war, Hepworth had no material or space for carving for the children and spent her nights drawing abstract, crystalline forms that she called “sculpture born in 2 dimensions”.
In 1942, she moved into a larger house with her family, with a space for her to own a studio and began carving and developing the idea of sculptures with colored colors – a series of smaller works, initially in stucco and then on wood, and then created the piece Sculpture with color (oval form) light blue and red In 1943. This period marked the beginning of color and string music in her work – the latter becoming something she famously known for. She described in 1952: “The color in the concave sank me into the depths of water, caves or shadows, deeper than the sculpted depression itself. Strings are the tension I feel between myself and the ocean, wind and rain or hills,” she said in an experience connecting her carvings to the landscape, especially the British coastline. These ideas will develop in the 1940s, groundbreakingly drawn string works, e.g. pelagos (Tate), and beyond.
Why do you feel this is important to you and your supporters still in England?
Hepworth is one of the most important British artists, the forefront of several avant-garde movements in Britain and a pioneer of modern abstract art. This work, in particular, introduces interactions with the British landscape in her work. This shows that she responded to the Cornwall landscape, which in turn attracted her through resonance with the Yorkshire landscape. As she points out, “The barbaric and magical countryside of the barbaric hills, fertile valleys and dynamic coastlines provide me with a background and soil that is my strength and soil compared to my childhood when I rode in the west.” She later reflects: “Maybe what one wants to say is formed in childhood, what one person has been trying to say for the rest of his life… All my early memories are form, shape and texture…the hills are sculptures, and the road defines the form.”
Sculpture with color (oval form) light blue and red The importance of Hepworth’s development of geometric abstraction in the 1930s and the importance of landscapes that would develop in the works of the 1940s and 1950s. It also reveals her amazing resilience and motivation to work in adverse circumstances related to British social history. In the 1940s, a female (and mother) artist’s struggle was a durable creativity in both national and global crisis times while balancing parenting and family chores. In the public collection, these fascinating and important stories around the sculpture can be made visible, allowing us to fully celebrate Hepworth’s outstanding life and work and provide the public with one of the most compelling examples of Hepworth’s sculptures.
Recently, fashion has been conducted through the huge art history in the art history that has been described as “rediscovering industrial complexes.” What is your impression of Hepworth’s current status?
Hepworth has achieved a very successful distance in his life in the male-dominated world of modern art, especially the modern sculpture. Nevertheless, she points to the challenges she often faces in gender-discriminatory attitudes in key institutions, dealers and the press. For example, until 1964, she was Tate, the best art of the last decade, participated in a group performance and was one of only eight women of 170 artists. “There is still a deep prejudice against women in the art,” she said in 1966.
Hepworth’s latest scholarship – Here’s something I’ve paid special attention to in the book Barbara Hepworth: Art and Life– In addition to the formerly dominant formalist narrative, her personal life, passion and interest roles at work are working hard. As another example, we are now entering an era where artists’ parenting responsibilities and the inspiration they can draw from – are seen as effective themes in conversations surrounding creativity. Recently, awareness and celebrations of female artists have increased significantly and acknowledged many factors that have prevented many from having the same reputation and sales price as their male peers, which has led to the thriving career being lost or completely ignored by history.
Hepworth is only now starting to earn the international recognition she deserves, currently taking the European tour “Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life” at Fondation Maeght in Maeght and heading to Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso in Münster in November 2025.
You have already provided an impressive lineup of British artists to support this effort. What made them fight for this?
We are delighted to have so many contemporary artists supporting our campaign, from Rachel Whiteread and Anish Kapoor to Richard Deacon and Veronica Ryan. This shows Hepworth’s importance in British art history and her lasting legacy, especially the sculpture. At Hepworth Wakefield, we have a ever-changing modern and modern art program and our permanent collection, and I have seen many artists interact with Hepworth – her material practices, her philosophy, the way in which they interact with the world and transform it into art – all of which continue to resonate with the artist. It’s amazing to bring Sculpture with color (oval form) light blue and red Enter into this ongoing dialogue between artistic creativity in the past and present.
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