Guided Tours
Gallery tours are a great starting point for first-time visitors or those who want to discover more about our art, artists, and architecture.
We welcome single visitors, couples and large organised groups. Explore the different options below and request a private tour today!
Gallery Tour
In a comprehensive overview across ten gallery spaces, you will discover Wakefield’s art collection, as well as works by Barbara Hepworth and other contemporary international artists.
We run a free highlight tours at 11.15am on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Tour focus: A Living Collection, Still Lives, The Hepworth Family Gift, Sylvia Snowden, Ronald Moody, Igshaan Adams.
Barbara Hepworth Tour
Trace the artistic development of Barbara Hepworth, whose early experiences of the industrial and rural landscapes of Yorkshire shaped her extraordinary life and career. The tour includes 44 prototypes in plaster, aluminium and wood, as well as drawings, lithographs and screen prints.
Tour focus: A Living Collection, The Hepworth Family Gift
Garden Tour
Tom Stuart-Smith’s design draws inspiration from its unusual setting between 19th-century red-brick mills and a 21st-century art gallery, edged by the River Calder. It echoes the striking, angular shapes of the David Chipperfield-designed gallery while harnessing a naturalism that reflects Barbara Hepworth’s deep connection to the landscape.
Tour focus: The Hepworth Wakefield Garden
Architecture Tour
In the tour, you will learn how David Chipperfield’s design of the galleries allows the introduction of daylight through skylights, how we obtain most of the heating and cooling from the river’s flow, and how the pigmented concrete façade informs the sculptural and historical reading of the building.
Tour focus: Our architecture, Our history
