I can be in Wakefield by train in less than an hour and then it's just a short hop from Kirkgate station to The Hepworth art gallery. I wanted to catch an exhibition of work by the artist and photographer Lee Miller (1907-1977), an American fashion model and later photographer and photojournalist, who became involved with the Surrealist movement. She worked at one time with Man Ray (and was his lover, I think) and eventually settled in the UK during the turbulent years of WWII. 'Lee Miller and Surrealism in Britain' showed some of her work alongside the work of other artists prominent in the Surrealist movement, and her photos of them. It was interesting rather than 'likeable'. Some of her most famous photos are rather shocking: a severed human breast on a plate, and Miller herself in Hitler's bathtub on the day his suicide was announced. But I did like the abstracted nudes, particularly one of a woman's back, reminiscent of a cello. (Sadly, photography not allowed in the exhibition.)
The gallery itself is very photogenic, inside and out, in a Brutalist sort of way. It's like a sculpture in itself.
Designed by David Chipperfield in 2011, it sits alongside the River Calder. From the huge windows, it has breathtaking views that you come upon almost unexpectedly as you wander through the galleries.
Next door is this striking old Victorian mill building. There are plans for a new public garden to be designed by Tom Stuart-Smith, to occupy the space between.
That gallery is on my to-do list whenever I next get over to that part of the world.
ReplyDeleteBrutalist is very appropriate for the building's purpose, though I prefer that Victorian mill.
ReplyDeleteI'm loving the Victorian mill - looks very picturesque.
ReplyDeleteThe concrete Hepworth block is just plain ugly. As Prince Charles once said, it is like a carbuncle on the face of an old friend.
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