£3.8m fundraiser saves Hepworth art for gallery

An "extremely rare" sculpture by celebrated Westcountry artist Dame Barbara Hepworth is to be saved after an art gallery raised £3.8 million.

- CASEY COOPER-FISKE

The 1943 work entitled Sculpture With Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue And Red had been in private ownership and was placed under a temporary export bar by the UK Government, to give a British museum the chance to acquire it, after it was deemed too important to leave the UK.

The art work is made of painted wood and string and is part of a larger series in the late Dame Barbara's oeuvre, which she developed throughout the Second World War after she settled with her family in St Ives, Cornwall.

It will go on permanent display at The Hepworth Wakefield, in the artist's West Yorkshire hometown, after the art gallery led a fundraising drive which saw donations from more than 2,800 members of the public.