The Hepworth Wakefield and Art Fund has successfully raised the £3.8 million needed to acquire Barbara Hepworth’s Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red (1943).
The wood and string sculpture will become part of the UK’s national collection and go on permanent public display at the Hepworth Wakefield, in the artist’s hometown of Wakefield, West Yorkshire.
The artwork was privately owned and rarely seen by the public before Christie’s sold it at auction for £3.5 million in London last March. But the UK government placed Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red under a temporary export bar to give a museum in the country the opportunity to raise the funds necessary acquire the artwork. The deadline to raise funds was August 27, according to BBC News.
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The £3.8 million came from more than 2,800 donations and several large grants, including £1.89 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and a grant of £750,000 from the Art Fund, as well as private support.
“We are incredibly grateful to all who have come together to save this exceptional sculpture for the nation, and we are thrilled to be able to now acquire this work, enabling us to tell the full, rich story of Barbara Hepworth’s career and inspire our audiences well into the future,” Laura Smith, the Hepworth Wakefield’s interim artistic director, told ARTnews in an emailed statement, calling the amount of support from public donors, private trusts and foundations “particularly galvanizing.” “We are delighted to have received such affirmation from the audiences we serve.”
A press statement also noted the fundraising campaign for the sculpture was “backed by artists and creatives including Jonathan Anderson, Maria Balshaw, Rana Begum, Richard Deacon, Jenny Éclair, Sir Antony Gormley, Katy Hessel, Sir Anish Kapoor, Veronica Ryan, Joanna Scanlan and Dame Rachel Whiteread.”
“This campaign has really demonstrated how the public can come together with donations of all sizes to save important works of art for future generations,” Art Fund director of development Alice Regent told ARTnews in an emailed statement.
Hepworth produced Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red during World War II. A press statement noted that “it 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.”
George Nelson contributed reporting.