Our past exhibitions

This new display will explore how artists working in 1930s Britain turned to abstraction in order to evolve a universal language of art that could engage any viewer. Work by contemporary artists including Bridget Riley and a new acquisition by Cerith Wyn Evans reveal the enduring nature of abstraction as a universal language over time and in changing contexts.

Wakefield’s art collection was established in the 1920s to nurture a public understanding of contemporary art and its relation to modern life – a collecting principle still followed by The Hepworth Wakefield today. This exhibition will demonstrate how the collection has been strategically developed over nearly 10 years since The Hepworth Wakefield opened.

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The works on display in this exhibition have been selected from Wakefield's art collection to reveal the wide variety of materials artists have used to express sculptural ideas – through abstraction and figuration, and from the early twentieth century up to the present day. 

The Hepworth Wakefield will present the first solo exhibition in a European museum by American artist Christina Quarles.

This major new exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield will bring together around 45 paintings and works on paper by Alan Davie and David Hockney, many of which have not been seen publicly for decades.

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A festival of sculpture across Wakefield and Leeds. At The Hepworth Wakefield, a series of new commissions and debut UK presentations by established and emerging artists from around the world including Nairy Baghramian, Jimmie Durham, Wolfgang Laib and Tau Lewis unfold across the gallery.

This exhibition as part of Yorkshire Sculpture International continues the investigation into the use of materials with a display of work celebrating the diverse range of artists The Hepworth Wakefield has brought to Yorkshire since opening in 2011.

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This exhibition brings together more than 50 of Odundo’s vessels alongside a selection of historic and contemporary objects that have inspired her from across the globe. Works by artists including Edgar Degas, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Auguste Rodin are on display.

This new exhibition of photographs by leading British photographers such as Shirley Baker, Bill Brandt, Anna Fox, Chris Killip, Martin Parr and Tony Ray-Jones explored our evolving relationship with the natural world and how this shapes individuals and communities.