Comedian Jenny Eclair and sculptor Sir Antony Gormley are among the backers of a £3.8 million fundraiser to save a Dame Barbara Hepworth artwork “for the nation”.
Sculpture With Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue And Red, created in the 1940s, was auctioned by Christie’s in March last year for millions of pounds.
Toward the end of 2024, the sculpture was given a temporary export bar to prevent it from leaving the UK, allowing time for a UK gallery to acquire it.
The Hepworth Wakefield art museum and national charity Art Fund have launched an appeal to acquire it, with the aim of permanently and publicly displaying the sculpture in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, where artist Dame Barbara was born.
Artists and creatives including Jonathan Anderson, Richard Deacon, Katy Hessel, Sir Anish Kapoor, Veronica Ryan, Joanna Scanlan and Dame Rachel Whiteread have backed the appeal.
Sir Antony, 74, said: “Barbara Hepworth’s work remains a luminary example of both an engagement with modernism and a return to direct carving.
“The opportunity for the museum named after her to acquire this important work is precious and should be supported.”
Sculptor Sir Anish, 71, who won the Turner Prize in 1991, said: “Barbara Hepworth’s Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red must be saved for the nation.
“Art fund has put up a quarter of the value of this important sculpture in an extraordinary bid to keep this work in a public collection and accessible to all.
“This sculpture comes from a period of work by Hepworth in which she explores form and emptiness and looks forward to radical modernity.”
Simon Wallis, director, The Hepworth Wakefield, added: “We established The Hepworth Wakefield 14 years ago to celebrate, explore and build on Barbara Hepworth’s legacy.
“This sculpture is the missing piece, a masterpiece which deserves to be on display in the town where Hepworth was born.”
The museum is home to Wakefield’s art collection, including significant works by Dame Barbara but excluding her finished works from the 1940s.
The art work is made of painted wood and string and is part of a larger series in Dame Barbara’s oeuvre, which she developed throughout the Second World War after she settled with her family in St Ives, Cornwall.
