The Hepworth Wakefield announces 2025/26 exhibition programme
09 Oct 2024
The Hepworth Wakefield is excited to share its exhibition programme for 2025/26, showcasing the very best in contemporary and 20th-century art. Exhibition entry is free for Members, Wakefield District residents and under 18s.
Elizabeth Fritsch: Otherworldly Vessels
Opening 8 March 2025
A survey exhibition of one of Britain’s foremost ceramicists, Elizabeth Fritsch (b.1940, Whitchurch, UK). The exhibition will bring together over 100 works made between the 1970s and 2013 drawn largely from the artist’s own rarely-seen private collection. It will explore Fritsch’s extraordinary forms, techniques and influences across four decades of her career.
The exhibition is in collaboration with Adrian Sassoon Gallery, London.
Helen Chadwick: Life Pleasures
17 May 2025 – 27 October 2025
British artist Helen Chadwick (1953 – 1996) embraced the sensuous aspects of the natural world, breaking taboos of the ‘traditional’ or ‘beautiful’ in art history. This major retrospective will be the first in over 25 years, and will chart the development of Chadwick’s art from her renowned degree show piece In the Kitchen (1977) through to her Piss Flowers (1991–2).
This exhibition is supported by the Henry Moore Foundation, the Helen Chadwick Exhibition Circle and Tony’s Chocolonely.
Caroline Walker: Mothering
17 May 2025 – 27 October 2025
Caroline Walker (b.1982, Dunfermline) studied painting at Glasgow School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London, and is known for her accomplished paintings which offer a lens into the everyday lives of women. Through her large canvases, intimate panels and ink sketches, she portrays diverse female subjects in settings that blur the boundaries between public and private.
This exhibition has been generously supported by Stephen Friedman Gallery.
Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto
November 2025 – May 2026
In partnership with CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art, Denmark and Kunstsilo, Norway, The Hepworth Wakefield will bring Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto to the UK in November 2025. The artist and author Edmund de Waal (b.1954, Nottingham) has curated the first major exhibition of acclaimed Danish ceramicist Axel Salto (1889 – 1961), considered one of the greatest masters of 20th-century ceramic art.
Kira Freije
November 2025 – May 2026
The first major solo exhibition of Kira Freije’s (b. 1985, London) work in the UK. For the exhibition, Freije will create a new body of work comprising around 20 life-size figures which will be arranged in small groupings affecting a society in various states of action. The groupings suggest narrative fragments, or interior states of mind and evoke a time and place, without specifically referencing a history or geography.
The production of the newly commissioned work for The Hepworth Wakefield has been generously supported by the Foundation Foundation.
The Hepworth Wakefield’s spring 2025 exhibitions programme is supported in-kind by Atelier Ellis.
