LONDON — British fashion label JW Anderson has named the Hepworth Wakefield gallery in West Yorkshire, England, as the inaugural recipient of the JW Anderson Collections Fund.
Conceived by brand creative director Jonathan Anderson, the fund aims to support the acquisition of works by museums across the U.K. A collecting institution will receive 50,000 pounds a year to acquire works by artists who are underrepresented in the U.K.
With the funding, Hepworth Wakefield purchased a large-scale charcoal drawing by Jake Grewal. The piece will be displayed at the gallery in spring 2023.
“I’ve always loved visiting collections in the U.K. and draw a huge amount of inspiration from them. They are the heart of any institution and make each museum unique. As funding to build these collections in the U.K. becomes increasingly limited, I wanted to find a way to make sure museums can continue to grow, in particular by looking at the work of emerging artists or those who aren’t well represented in collections across the country,” Anderson said.
Simon Wallis, director at the Hepworth Wakefield, added: “As a public art gallery, we rely entirely on philanthropy to be able to continue to strategically develop our collection.…Vital initiatives such as the JW Anderson Collections Fund are very rare and it’s a testament to Jonathan Anderson’s long-standing desire to support and nurture creativity in the U.K.
“We are enormously grateful to him for supporting our work and enabling us to add outstanding new works of art to Wakefield’s collection, one that he became very familiar with in 2016 when he worked with us to curate his critically acclaimed ‘Disobedient Bodies’ exhibition,’” Wallis said.
Anderson has drawn inspiration from contemporary art for the collections at his brand, as well as Loewe, where he has been the creative director since 2013.
For the fall 2023 JW Anderson collection shown last week in London, the designer collaborated with his hero Michael Clark, melding his own archives with those of the maverick Scottish choreographer known for marrying classical dance with contemporary art and popular culture.
Source: WWD