Overview

• The Hepworth Wakefield and Art Fund raised £3.8 million, including £1.89 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and a £750,000 Art Fund grant, supplemented by more than 2,800 public donations.
• The sculpture, Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red (1943), is among Hepworth’s earliest stringed wooden carvings and the only work to feature multicolored strings.
• The Department for Culture, Media and Sport applied a temporary export bar in November after advisers ruled the piece of outstanding significance.
• The work had remained in private ownership for decades and was sold at Christie’s London in March 2024 to a private buyer.
• The acquisition addresses a gap in the Wakefield museum’s holdings from the 1940s, with prominent artists including Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread and Richard Deacon backing the campaign.