27 October 2012–3 February 2013
The Hepworth Wakefield
Gallery Walk, Wakefield
West Yorkshire, WF1 5AW
Free admission
T 01924 247360
hello [at] hepworthwakefield.org
Acquired from the mid ’90s onwards, the David Roberts Collection, comprising 1,800 works by 750 British and international artists, is one of the UK’s most significant private collections of modern and contemporary art. Thirty outstanding pieces are on display at The Hepworth Wakefield, including work by Huma Bhabha, Louise Bourgeois, Tony Cragg, Lucian Freud, Thomas Houseago, Eduardo Paolozzi and Rebecca Warren.
This selection of works from the David Roberts Collection has two starting points. The first is embodied in the title of the exhibition that is taken from the ’testaments’ of the major French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917). The second is the 19th-century sculpture La Boulonnaise, by the French-born artist Jules Dalou (1838–1902). Auguste Rodin, whose work made a huge contribution to the development of modern sculpture, sought to push representations of the human body beyond the formulaic traditions and idealised forms of the time to communicate new expressions of inner life. His lesser known contemporary Jules Dalou also sought to imbue his work with insight and energy that moved beyond conveying only a functional likeness. It is with these art-historical developments in mind that modern and contemporary works from the David Roberts Collection were selected. From the totemic and fragmented assemblages of Mark Manders and Thomas Houseago to the powerful isolation of Louise Bourgeois’ sculptural head, these artists use representations of the human body as a potent subject through which to explore psychological and emotional life.
This exhibition coincides with the opening of Barbara Hepworth: The Hospital Drawings at The Hepworth Wakefield. This new exhibition reveals the remarkable series of exquisite drawings and paintings made by Hepworth during the late 1940s, illustrating surgeons at work in operating theatres in post-war Britain.
*Image above:
Detail of Jules-Aime Dalou, La Boulonnaise, 1870s. Image courtesy David Roberts Collection, London. Photo: Hannah Webster. Detail of Des Lawrence, Fay Ray: Obituary Portrait, 2005. Image courtesy the artist and David Roberts Collection, London.
