The Jeffrey Sherwin & Family Collection
Dr Jeffrey Sherwin (1936-2018) championed visual arts in the north of England throughout his life, starting out as a collector while a junior doctor. As a Leeds city councillor, Sherwin was instrumental in developing the Henry Moore Institute of which Moore himself laid the foundation stone in April 1980. Sherwin was a much-loved general practitioner in Leeds for 40 years and contributed significantly to the civic and cultural life of the city.In 1986, an exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery was Jeffrey Sherwin’s first encounter with British Surrealism which, in his own words, ‘made me return and look again and again’. For Jeffrey and his wife Ruth, it inspired a lifetime of collecting Surrealist works of art and related archive material. In 2014 Sherwin wrote British Surrealism Opened Up, in the words of the author, an ‘everyman guide’ to British Surrealism.The Jeffrey Sherwin & Family Collection of British Surrealism, and the associated archive, has now found a permanent home at The Hepworth Wakefield, greatly enhancing Wakefield’s collection of Surrealist art.This research has been supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
Marion Adnams, Island Magic, 1940
© The Estate of Marion Adnams
Eileen Agar, Angel of Mercy, 1934
Image © Estate of Eileen Agar. All rights reserved 2023 / Bridgeman Images
Eileen Agar, Happy Breakfast, 1937
Image © Estate of Eileen Agar. All rights reserved 2023 / Bridgeman Images
Eileen Agar, Cadavre Exquis, c.1939
Image © Estate of Eileen Agar. All rights reserved 2023 / Bridgeman Images
John Banting, Image of Aries, 1935
Bridgeman Images
Emmy Bridgwater, Necessary Bandages, c. 1942
© Estate of the artist
Leonora Carrington, Head, 1950
Image © Estate of Leonora Carrington / ARS, NY and DACS, London 2022. The Sherwin Collection
Ithell Colquhoun, Dance of the Nine Opals, 1942
Shared ownership of image copyright: The Samaritans, The Noise Abatement Society and the Sister Perpetua Wing of St Anthony’s Hospital, Cheam, Surrey (now part of Spire Healthcare).
Ithell Colquhoun, Tree Anatomy, 1942
Shared ownership of image copyright: The Samaritans, The Noise Abatement Society and the Sister Perpetua Wing of St Anthony’s Hospital, Cheam, Surrey (now part of Spire Healthcare).
Toni del Renzio, Paranoiac Regression, 1941
© The del Renzio Estate
Merlyn Evans, Tyrannopolis, 1939
© The family of Merlyn Evans
Max Ernst, poster for International Surrealist Exhibition, Burlington Galleries, London, 1936
© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London
Gordon Onslow Ford, Checkmate, 1940
Image reproduced courtesy of Lucid Art Foundation, Inverness, California
William Gear, Dancing Landscape, 1938
© 2026 The Redfern Gallery
Samuel Haile, Hitler must be overcome, 1939
Image reproduced courtesy of Tattwa Gyani
Samuel Haile, Shop Windows in Trinidad, 1938
Image reproduced courtesy of Tattwa Gyani
Humphrey Jennings, Trees with Rainbow Stripe, c. 1935
Frederick Edward Mcwilliam, A.R.A., The Long Arm, 1939
Image reproduced courtesy of Sarah Gretton, FE McWilliam Estate
Conroy Maddox, Landscape of the Night, 1939
Kind permission for reproduction of Landscape of the Night, 1939 is given by the artist’s daughter
Reuben Mednikoff, April 23 and 24, Arboreal Bliss, 1935
Reuben Mednikoff, Conscious to the Subconscious, c.1933-34
Reuben Mednikoff, October 2, 1938-2, 1938
Desmond Morris, The Attendant, 2010
© Desmond Morris / Image reproduced courtesy of Desmond Morris
Desmond Morris, There’s No Time Like The Future, 1957
© Desmond Morris / Image reproduced courtesy of Desmond Morris
Grace Pailthorpe, 16th November 1937 at 2.30pm, 1937
Grace Pailthorpe, Composition (April 22), 1940
Sir Roland Penrose, Unsleeping Beauty, 1946
Image: Roland Penrose © Lee Miller Archives, England 2022. All rights reserved
Ceri Richards, Bird and Beast, 1938
© Estate of Ceri Richards. All rights reserved, DACS
Edith Rimmington, Limits of Experience, 1940
© Courtesy of ER estate
Edith Rimmington, Sisters of Anarchy, 1941-42
© Courtesy of ER estate
Edith Rimmington, Miss Pumpkin, 1947
© Courtesy of ER estate
Humphrey Spender, Photograph of John Banting in Lenk, Austria, 1938
‘We are so delighted to be working closely with the Sherwin family to look after and make available their important collection to a broad and diverse audience here at The Hepworth Wakefield. We regularly borrowed works from Jeffrey during his lifetime and our staff have fond memories of benefitting from Jeffrey’s deep and engaged knowledge of this exciting period in art history. When Surrealism was at its height in Britain, Barbara Hepworth was creating her earliest abstract carvings and Henry Moore was very much part the movement, so the Sherwin collection is a wonderfully rich resource that adds an important new dimension to our core story of Modern British art.’ Simon Wallis, Director, The Hepworth Wakefield.
