The Hepworth Wakefield announces 2025 – 27 exhibition programme
19 Sep 2025
The Hepworth Wakefield shares its exhibition programme for 2025 – 27, showcasing the very best in contemporary and 20th-century art. To mark its 15th birthday in May 2026, the gallery will present two exhibitions that celebrate the core story of Wakefield’s art collection and the legacy of the Wakefield-born artist it was named after, Barbara Hepworth.
Winter/Spring 2025/26
Playing With Fire: Edmund de Waal & Axel Salto
22 November 2025 – 4 May 2026
Renowned artist and author Edmund de Waal (b.1964, Nottingham) has curated an exhibition of acclaimed Danish ceramicist Axel Salto (1889 – 1961), presenting a rare opportunity to experience the full range of Salto’s work, most never before seen in the UK. Playing with Fire includes a specially commissioned installation by de Waal inspired by Salto’s work as well as a new series of monumental black elegie vessels – the artist’s largest works to date – never before shown in the UK. Read more…
The exhibition is produced in partnership with CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art, Denmark and Kunstsilo, Norway, and is made possible by a generous grant from The AKO Foundation, a London-based philanthropic foundation.
With further support from Maak Foundation, Blavatnik Family Foundation, and The Playing with Fire Exhibition Circle. In-kind support from Forbo Flooring Systems.
Kira Freije: Unspeak the Chorus
22 November 2025 – 4 May 2026
For the first major solo exhibition of Kira Freije’s (b. 1985, London) work in the UK, the artist will create a significant new body of work, comprising life-size metal figures, taking both human and animal form. This community of figures evoke an interior world, as well as a public one, shaping narrative fragments and interrupted scenes. This exhibition will be Freije’s most ambitious to date and will be accompanied by a specially devised lighting design from lighting designer, Matt Daw. Read more…
The exhibition is co-commissioned by The Hepworth Wakefield and Modern Art Oxford, in collaboration with KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin. With generous support from The Foundation Foundation, The Kira Freije Exhibition Circle and Firefly AV.
Summer 2026
Mrinalini Mukherjee
23 May – 25 October 2026
This major retrospective at The Hepworth Wakefield will celebrate Indian artist Mrinalini Mukherjee (1949 – 2015), one of the world’s most significant modernist sculptors. The exhibition will bring together – for the first time in the UK – the full range of different media Mukherjee worked with, including textiles, ceramic and bronze sculptures, drawings, etchings and watercolours, celebrating an extraordinary 40-year career. Read more…
The exhibition is prefigured by a group show centred around Mukherjee at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) in autumn 2025. The Hepworth Wakefield is working in partnership with the RA to bring this exceptional artist to audiences in London and Wakefield.
Lewis Hammond
23 May – 25 October 2026
This exhibition will mark Lewis Hammond’s (b. 1987, Wolverhampton) first museum presentation in the UK, featuring a new body of paintings developed specifically for The Hepworth Wakefield. As an artist who has spent several years based in Berlin – and is now returning to the UK to establish his studio – this exhibition serves as both a homecoming and a reflection on themes of disconnection and ways of coming together. Read more…
Winter/Spring 2026/27
Ida Ekblad: World’s Largest Metaphor
21 November 2026 – April 2027
Ida Ekblad (b. 1980, Oslo) is one of the most compelling artists working today. Based in Oslo, Norway, her work spans multiple mediums, often blurring the lines between painting and sculpture. Ekblad’s work is characterised by the recycling of materials and visual motifs drawn from a wide range of references from contemporary pop culture to folklore and Expressionist painting. She creates richly layered, textured oils on linen that pulse with energy and colour, then transforms these paintings into monumental sculptures in metal and glass. This will be the artist’s first major solo exhibition in the UK, introducing Ekblad’s work to broad new audiences. Read more…
This exhibition is organised in collaboration with Kunsten, Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, where it will be presented in Summer 2027. Made possible by a generous grant from The AKO Foundation, a London-based philanthropic foundation.
Marc Chagall: The Circus
21 November 2026 – April 2027
Throughout his prolific career, Marc Chagall (1887 – 1985) returned time and again to the vivid imagery of acrobats, clowns and fantastical performers, transforming the circus into a metaphor for the complexities, joys and sorrows of the human experience. Marc Chagall: The Circus will present Chagall’s celebrated lithographs on this subject, alongside paintings and archival material, both providing an introduction to Chagall’s work and life, and exploring his unique vision and symbology. Read more…
Exhibitions drawn from Wakefield's Permanent Art Collection
Barbara Hepworth, Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red, 1943
27 September 2025 – March 2026
Following The Hepworth Wakefield and Art Fund’s successful appeal to save Barbara Hepworth’s Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red, 1943, for the nation, this pivotal work goes on public display at The Hepworth Wakefield in Hepworth’s hometown of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in September 2025. Read more…
The acquisition was made possible by an exceptional £1.89 million grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund with thanks to National Lottery players, a £750,000 grant from Art Fund, and generous support from the Deborah Loeb Brice Foundation, The Forster Foundation, The Garcia Family Foundation, Garfield Weston Foundation, The Headley Trust, the Hepworth family, the Henry Moore Foundation, John Studzinski CBE, The Julia Rausing Trust, and many other individuals, trusts and foundations.
A Living Collection
March 2026 – March 2027
This new collection display showcases art works that have been donated or fundraised for to keep Wakefield’s art collection ‘a living collection’ for future generations to enjoy. Many of the works have joined the collection in the last 18 months and are displayed for the first time since their acquisition. Newly acquired works by Emma Prempeh, Tau Lewis, Aaron Angell, Hans Coper, Nehemia Azaz and Jennifer Lee will be displayed alongside collection highlights from Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.
Modern Art and Modern Life: Highlights from Wakefield’s Modern British Collection
March 2026 – March 2027
This exhibition charts a compelling narrative of British modernism shaped by shifting cultural contexts and personal visions. It will highlight key works in Wakefield’s collection by artists including Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham, Hans Coper, Barbara Hepworth, Terry Frost, Naum Gabo, Patrick Heron, Ben Nicholson, Ronald Moody, Henry Moore, Roland Penrose, and Lucie Rie.
Rhythm, Dance and Everything: The Body and Performance in Art from Hepworth to Now
March 2026 – March 2027
Through sculpture, installation, video and live performance, the exhibition reveals how artists continually reimagine embodiment – whether in the solid stillness of carved stone or the fleeting choreography of the present moment. By intertwining past and present, Rhythm, Dance and Everything offers a compelling meditation on how movement shapes our experience of art, and our understanding of ourselves.
