The Hepworth Gallery at Wakefield

While in the Yorkshire area for a Ramblers holiday, it seemed like a good idea to extend the stay by an extra night and have a look at the Hepworth in Wakefield and also visit the Yorkshire Sculpture Park as well. The trip from Skipton to Wakefield looked easy enough on Google maps, but wasn't so easy on the ground, we got lost in Shipley and ended up on the road to Leeds. Finally using the phone app to help, we arrived in Wakefield and located the Premier Inn in a park to the south of the city where we booked in, left the car and walked to the Hepworth Gallery through an industrial estate until we reached the river where there were obviously lots of old warehouse buildings associated with the woollen trade.
There's a very impressive walk to the Hepworth over a bridge across the river Calder, and this is the first sight of it, apparently rising out of the water

 The building is clad with a self compacting pigment concrete made on site which enhances the appearance of the building which is composed of 10 trapezoid blocks. The upper level galleries are cleverly lit by natural light from the large windows and pitched roofs.

 Below you can see part of the bridge leading to the building

 The view from the large window you can see in the first photo is great

 The galleries are situated on the first floor, the first gallery houses the Contemporary Collection, established in 1932, the current display presents highlights from the collection including 'Wandering Palm' by Eva Rothschild seen below

This painting by Patrick Heron, 'June Horizon', he made the painting the year before he took over Ben Nicholson's studio in St.Ives

 and below 'The Tollbooth', Glasgow 1947 by LS Lowry. In the early 1950s, Helen Kapp, Director of Wakefield Art Gallery approached Lowry to paint a view of Wakefield for the collection. Sadly the funds could not be found so this painting was purchased instead. On the label it's spelt 'tolbooth'.

 This painting by Ralph Nicholas Chubb called 'The Well' and painted in 1920 was made while Chubb was a student at the Slade, it maps an all encompassing vision of society.

 From there we walked into Gallery 2 where there's a Henry Moore exhibition. I loved this drawing of Bevin boys, called 'Pit Boys at Pit Head'. Moore was born in Castleford and studied at Leeds School of Art with Barbara Hepworth. In 1977, Moore discovered Wakefield was fundraising to buy one print from the Stonehenge series and donated the series.

 Gallery 3 has some amazing pieces by Barbara Hepworth, I was very pleased with this photo, Jane stood still long enough for me to capture her in the centre of this sculpture, 'Spring' a bronze with strings, 1966

 This is a figure carved in rosewood in 1933, called 'Kneeling Figure'

 Galleries 4 & 5 house Hepworth memorabilia and tell the story of Barbara Hepworth, the photo below shows her at work

 I think these sculptures are in Gallery 5, they are beautifully positioned and look fabulous.

There are traveling exhibitions in the other 5 galleries which we didn't look at properly because we opted for a guided tour, and had an excellent lunch in the cafe.
The visit to the Hepworth was a fantastic experience, the building is fabulous, the situation beside the river delightful. It's not surprising that the Hepworth was voted Museum of the Year in 2017.
The architect David Chipperfield designed the building, if you click on the link, you can see some fabulous photos of it.
Outside Tom Stuart Smith has been commissioned to design a garden which will be one of the largest public gardens