The Hepworth garden

The area in front of the Hepworth was until last year a stark and rather bare strip of little more than grass. The garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith was commissioned to turn it into a public garden and this has now been achieved. I saw it last year as it was being landscaped (see HERE) so it was interesting to see the finished scheme. I suppose by October most gardens are past their best but this one, with its sweeps of naturalistic planting within a defined framework, with sculptures interspersed, still looked pretty good.  The huge 'Pitchfork (Yellow)' is a work by Sir Michael Craig-Martin. 

I prefer Lynn Chadwick's 'Dancing Figures', made in 1956 and referencing the swagger of the Teddy-boys of the that era. 

The Barbara Hepworth work above (and below) is 'Ascending Form (Gloria)', and the tall white column in the distance is 'The Three' by Rebecca Warren, an oddly lumpy painted bronze piece that looks as if it's made of icing sugar. 

I loved all the soft grasses, offsetting the strong lines of the surrounding buildings and sculptures. I particularly liked the black seedheads of Echinacea pallida, strong and sculptural themselves, set against the soft mauves of Michaelmas daisies. 

I have to say though that it wasn't until I saw THIS aerial photo of the garden that the design really made sense, in the way it echoes the sculptural forms of The Hepworth building itself.