Six new School Prints announced for 2021

The artists who have generously created a new print for the project are:

Hurvin Anderson (b. 1965, Birmingham)

Alvaro Barrington (b. 1983 Caracas, Venezuela)

Sir Frank Bowling OBE, RA (b. 1934, Bartica, Essequibo, British Guiana)

Lubaina Himid CBE (b. 1954, Zanzibar, Tanzania)

Claudette Johnson (b. 1959, Manchester)

Yinka Shonibare CBE (b. 1962, London)

Launched in 2018 by The Hepworth Wakefield, School Prints is an ambitious five-year project to engage every primary school child in Wakefield District with contemporary art. Each year, the participating schools are gifted a set of limited-edition prints by leading contemporary artists for display in school and are supported with an in-depth engagement programme led by local artists to encourage creativity across the curriculum. Sales of the limited-edition prints fund the work with the schools. The prints are available to buy in editions of 40 at £500 each from shop.hepworthwakefield.org

Nicola Freeman, Director of Engagement & Learning at The Hepworth Wakefield, said: “The prominence and urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 has brought into sharp focus the lack of diversity across the arts and museum sector. As part of a number of initiatives to address this in all areas of our work at The Hepworth Wakefield, we are reshaping our Continuing Professional Development programmes for teachers and all future work with schools to support the teaching of black histories across the curriculum, starting by making this campaign the focus of School Prints 2021. We are delighted that this project is supported by such fantastic artists who have so generously given their time and creativity to help us in this endeavour.”

Hurvin Anderson said: “Art is a vital part of children’s education, not just in inspiring the next generation of artists but creativity in general. It is also an area of education which has been continually overlooked and devalued by successive governments. It was therefore important to me to support The Hepworth Wakefield School Prints project in which there is an attempt to redress the balance. In particular, in this tumultuous year, drawing attention to the Black Lives Matter movement through creating a visual representation of everyday black experiences has never felt more relevant. I was honoured to be invited.”

Alvaro Barrington said: “Education is going through a lot of important questioning about what it needs to proceed and I believe the more voices in the conversation the better everyone will be served.”

Lubaina Himid said: “It is vital that our young people can feel that they are important to us and begin to understand that we are all committed to investing in every way we can to help them expand and extend their potential.”

Claudette Johnson said: “I thought it important to support the project because I remember, as a school child, gazing at the Bruegel, Picasso and Canaletto prints that hung along the corridors of my secondary school. I took it for granted that art would be available to look at and think about as I moved around the school. I believe this should be every child’s birthright.”

School Prints is inspired by a ground-breaking scheme set up in the 1940s where artists, including Henri Matisse, Henry Moore and Pablo Picasso, were commissioned to create prints specifically for schools to allow children to have direct access to high-quality art. Artists who have taken part in The Hepworth Wakefield’s revival of the scheme include Fiona Banner, Sir Peter Blake, Sir Michael Craig-Martin, Martin Creed, Jeremy Deller, Anthea Hamilton, Helen Marten, Haroon Mirza, Laure Prouvost, Linder Sterling, Franics Upritchard, Richard Wentworth and Rose Wylie.

School Prints 2021 is generously supported by the Eridge Trust