Beaux Arts Gallery Beaux Arts Gallery Beaux Arts Gallery, London, England, founded in 1923 and closed in 1965, was known as a preeminent center for promoting avant-garde art. Founded and operated by portrait sculptor Frederick Lessore in 1923, the gallery was run by his wife Helen Lessore, a painter, until it closed in 1965. Prominent exhibitions at the gallery included: the first solo exhibition by Christopher Wood; one of the first exhibitions of Barbara Hepworth and her husband John Skeaping, the first solo exhibition of Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff. Beaux Arts Gallery also became associated with the Kitchen Sink School (and later
Barbara Hepworth Museum Forms. A set of photographs in the museum shows the progress of this project. Wood carving was done in an upstairs room, and the bronze statues she started casting in 1956 had their origins in the plaster prototypes she worked on in the upper of the two outside studios. She was helped in the creation of the garden by her friend, the South African-born composer Priaulx Rainier. Barbara Hepworth died in a fire at this site in 1975, when she was aged 72. The family passed the museum to the Tate gallery in 1980 and they still manage it. Barbara