For the 2022 festival, presented Barbara Hepworth: Art and Life, a major retrospective of the artist’s work. It spanned the artist’s entire career, charting the development of her practice, her engagement with political and societal change, and the events in her personal life which shaped her work. It features more than 120 works, lent from public and private collections, including renowned sculptures as well as rarely seen drawings and paintings.

The exhibition displayed some of Hepworth’s most celebrated sculptures, including the modern abstract carving that launched her career, her iconic strung sculptures, and later large-scale bronze and carved sculptures. It also brought insight to Hepworth’s wide-ranging interests — such as dance, theatre, music, religion, politics, and science — and show how they infused her artistic practice.