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\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
\n Published on
\n 20\/08\/2025 – 11:23 GMT+2\n <\/p>\n
\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
The UK has raised \u00a33.8 million (approx. \u20ac4.4 million) to save a rare sculpture by British artist Barbara Hepworth for the nation,The Hepworth Wakefield art museum said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Hepworth\u2019s 1943 \u2018Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red\u2019 will enter the UK\u2019s national collection and go on permanent public display at The Hepworth Wakefield, in her West Yorkshire hometown.<\/p>\n
Born in 1903, Barbara Hepworth was one of the leading and pioneering figures of British Modernism<\/strong><\/a> throughout the first half of the 20th century.<\/p>\n Her \u2018Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red\u2019 \u201cmarks a breakthrough in Hepworth\u2019s career,\u201d The Hepworth Wakefield said in a statement.<\/p>\n She created the piece at the height of World War II after she settled with her family in St. Ives, Cornwall. She remained there until her death in 1975.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is one of only a handful of wooden carvings made by Hepworth during the 1940s, and one of the first major wood carvings she made using strings.\u201d <\/p>\n She went on to produce a series of notable stringed and colourful sculptures.<\/p>\n English art collector Helen Sutherland first bought the piece directly from the artist in 1944. It remained privately owned and mostly shielded from public view ever since.<\/p>\n The artwork was most recently sold to a private collector at a Christie\u2019s auction<\/strong><\/a> in March 2024 in London. But in November, the UK\u2019s Department for Culture, Media and Sport placed a temporary export bar on the sculpture<\/strong><\/a>, citing its \u201coutstanding connection with our history and national life, its outstanding aesthetic importance and its outstanding significance\u201d to the study of Hepworth\u2019s work.<\/p>\n \u201cDame Barbara Hepworth was a phenomenal artistic genius,\u201d Arts Minister Chris Bryant said in a statement at the time. \u201cI hope a UK buyer can be found for this sculpture so the British public can continue to learn and engage with one our most important artists for generations to come.\u201d<\/p>\n The Hepworth Wakefield and UK charity Art Fund launched a campaign in June to raise the \u00a33.8 million necessary to buy the piece.<\/p>\n The campaign reached its target on Tuesday, ahead of its 27 August deadline. <\/p>\n The appeal resulted in 2,800 donations from individual members of the public, as well as several major grants, including \u00a31.89 million from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and \u00a3750,000 from Art Fund.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think [Hepworth] would have been delighted that so many people have come together to enable her work to be part of a public art collection which can be experienced and enjoyed by so many\u201d, said The Hepworth Wakefield interim director and CEO Olivia Colling.<\/p>\n The gallery will celebrate the sculpture\u2019s acquisition with a dedicated exhibition, with details to be announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 20\/08\/2025 – 11:23 GMT+2 ADVERTISEMENT The UK has raised \u00a33.8 million (approx. \u20ac4.4 million) to save…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,10085,11846,366,11946,18,117,19,17,7601,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-12653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-auction","13":"tag-christies","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-donation","16":"tag-eire","17":"tag-entertainment","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-sculpture","21":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}