The Hepworth Wakefield announce forthcoming programme for 2020

The photographer Bill Brandt and the sculptor Henry Moore first met during the Second World War, when they both created images of civilians sheltering from the Blitz in the London Underground. Taking these acclaimed ‘shelter pictures’ as a starting point, the exhibition explores the parallel and intersecting paths of these two great artists of the 20th century.

This major exhibition brings together over 200 works highlighting the relationships between sculpture, photography, drawing and collage revealed through Brandt and Moore’s shared interests in the subjects and themes of labour, society, industry, the British landscape and the human body. The exhibition includes Moore’s celebrated Reclining Figure sculptures and Brandt’s well-known photographs of coal miners and their families in Durham and Yorkshire, rare original colour transparencies by Brandt, and Moore’s little-known photo collages.

The exhibition is organised by the Yale Center for British Art in partnership with The Hepworth Wakefield and is accompanied by a major new book published by Yale University Press.

Sheila Hicks (b.USA, 1934) is one of the world’s foremost artists and sculptors working with textiles, fibre, colour and form.  Drawing together over 70 pieces from international public and private collections, this major exhibition will explore the many facets of Hicks’ groundbreaking work, from her intimate Minimes, small woven drawings she creates on a hand-held frame; to large-scale installations that fill gallery spaces with vibrant colour.

The exhibition will provide insight into how her extensive travels across several continents, where she studied vernacular textile traditions and construction techniques through observing and collaborating with local artists, as well as experimenting on her own, has deeply informed and inspired her own work.

Collapsing the boundaries between art, architecture and design, Hicks has increasingly engaged with public spaces outside of the conventional gallery and will respond to the spaces inside The Hepworth Wakefield building designed by David Chipperfield, as well as its setting on the River Calder and the new surrounding garden.

The Hepworth Wakefield will present the first major survey of British photographer Hannah Starkey, tracing the development of her work across two decades. Throughout her career Starkey’s meticulously choreographed photographs have determinedly engaged with how women are represented in contemporary culture, an issue which is now, finally centre stage.

Starkey reveals women in moments of private reflection, alienation or social interaction that might otherwise go unseen: a woman fleetingly fascinated by another woman’s reflection, or the attentive gaze of a mother carrying her child. Meanwhile, the large scale of her images suggest the recording of a monumental event.

On display will be images from Starkey’s graduation show in 1997 that immediately brought her widespread acclaim through to her most recent photographs of the Women’s March in London in 2017 and as yet unseen commissions.