UK to Keep Barbara Hepworth Masterwork After Fundraising Campaign

UK to Keep Barbara Hepworth Masterwork After Fundraising Campaign

British sculptorBarbara Hepworth’s 1943Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Redwill remain in England following a successful financial appeal issued bythe Hepworth Wakefieldmuseum and UK charity Art Fund. More than 2,800 members of the public contributed to the campaign, which raised the £3.8 million ($5.2 million) necessary to keep the treasure out of the clutches of a buyer who’d purchased the work from Christie’s for exactly that sum, and who intended to transport it overseas. Inaugurated after the British government placed an export bar on the sculpture, giving UK institutions until August 27 to come up with the cash to buy it, the effort was additionally supported by grants from numerous organizations, among them the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which contributed £1.89 million, and Art Fund, which kicked in £750,000.

Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Redis a lodestar in the historical firmament of British modern art. Hepworth, who was born in the coal-mining town of Wakefield, made it during World War II while living in St. Ives, Cornwall, working nights after full days spent caring for her young children, including four-year-old triplets. The sculpture is made of wood, which Hepworth had to obtain a special permit to carve, and colored string, stretched tautly across a pale blue void in the center of the white, egg-shaped form. The work was a favorite of the sculptor, who brought only its plaster prototype (since destroyed) with her when she moved to St. Ives.

“Barbara Hepworth often talked about her need to be part of a community and its proactive development,” said Olivia Colling, the Hepworth Wakefield’s interim director and CEO, in a statement. “We think she 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. We are enormously grateful for the generosity people have shown in helping us to bring this extremely rare and important work to Wakefield, the UK’s capital of sculpture.”

“Art Fund is proud to have led this urgent campaign with the Hepworth Wakefield, rallying public and philanthropic support to keep the sculpture in the UK in a public museum. It follows a long history of successful Art Fund appeals—from the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I to Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage and Joshua Reynolds’ Portrait of Mai—each made possible by the collective belief that art should be for everyone,” said Art Fund director Jenny Waldman in a statement. “The sculpture will now take its rightful place on permanent display in Wakefield, Hepworth’s birthplace, where it will inspire visitors for generations to come.”