Art & artists

Explore the work of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore – both born in the Wakefield district – alongside other modern British masters, including Eileen Agar, Jacob Epstein, Patrick Heron, Ben Nicholson, John Piper, Lucie Rie and Graham Sutherland.

Trace the artistic development of Barbara Hepworth, whose early experiences of the industrial and rural landscapes of Yorkshire shaped her extraordinary life and career.

Discover the work of Henry Moore, a contemporary of Hepworth who was also born in the Wakefield district. Like Hepworth, Moore gained an international reputation while remaining deeply connected to his early life in Yorkshire.

Hannah Starkey is the focus of our major exhibition in autumn/winter 2022/23. This includes a specially commissioned new body of work taken in Wakefield in 2022.

Get more from your experience at The Hepworth Wakefield with Bloomberg Connects.

To mark The Hepworth Wakefield’s 10th anniversary in 2021, the gallery organised the largest exhibition of Barbara Hepworth’s work – taking place across all ten gallery spaces – since the artist’s death in 1975. Explore the exhibition with our Art & Life microsite.

In June 2021, The Hepworth Wakefield and Google Arts & Culture launched a major new online exhibition about the artist. The Meet Barbara Hepworth online exhibition enables anyone, wherever they are in the world, to explore in-depth Hepworth’s art, interests, life and legacy.

We place artists at the heart of what we do, supporting local and international talent through our exhibitions, learning and public programmes. Recent acquisitions include work by Anthea Hamilton and Veronica Ryan.

A guide to our ambitious, world-class exhibitions programme and collection displays since opening in 2011.

Take an in-depth look at significant periods in the lives of artists including Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Bill Brandt, Lee Miller and Alina Szapocznikow.

Discover more about our art and artists in these regular updates from our curatorial team.

Meet the artists, illustrators and animators we’ve worked with on exhibitions and projects.

The Gott Collection was assembled in the 19th Century by John Gott (1830-1906), Vicar of Leeds and later Bishop of Truro, and his father William (1797-1863), a wool merchant. It was presented to Wakefield Art Gallery in 1930 by Frank Green, a Yorkshire industrialist and philanthropist.

When the gallery was closed during lockdown, we encouraged visitors to the website to explore art works from our collection.

This new publication, a guide to our collection, is now available to purchase from the shop.