Image: Barbara Hepworth, Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red, 1943 (Betty Saunders)
Museum needs to raise £2.9m by August or sculpture could leave the UK for private overseas buyer.
Art museum The Hepworth Wakefield has launched an urgent public appeal today, as it hopes to secure a sculpture by Dame Barbara Hepworth.
The Hepworth Wakefield, named for the artist, hopes to acquire her ‘Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red (1943)’ after raising £3.8m.
The acquisition would secure the sculpture for permanent public display in Wakefield, the city in which Hepworth was born. The Hepworth Wakefield’s existing collection includes works by Hepworth as well as the Hepworth Family Gift, a group of Hepworth’s prototypes.
It does not currently own any finished works by the artist from the 1940s, which it said is “one of the most pivotal periods in the artist’s development.”
Hepworth is well known for her stringed sculpture works, of which Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red is one of the earliest examples, having been created during the Second World War.
It has, until now, been in private ownership and is rarely seen in public. Last November it was placed under an export bar by the UK government to give a museum the chance to acquire it.
Art Fund has already committed £750,000 to the purchase, alongside early pledges from individuals and trusts.
The remaining £2.9m must be raised before 27 August 2025, or it will go to a private buyer and be taken overseas.
The Hepworth said the sculpture “reflects Hepworth’s experiences of the Cornish landscape around her… [e]mbodying Hepworth’s personal resilience as well as a turning point in her artistic development”.
It said on successful purchase, the star exhibit would also be lent to other museums across the UK.
Simon Wallis, director of The Hepworth Wakefield, called the sculpture “the missing piece, a masterpiece which deserves to be on display in the town where Hepworth was born.”
Jenny Waldman, director of Art Fund, added: “Every museum should have the power to secure landmark works of art but in today’s challenging funding climate they simply cannot compete with the prices demanded on the open market.
“We applaud The Hepworth Wakefield for the huge ambition of their bid to bring this Hepworth home.”
