A sneak preview of the Mr Jonathan Anderson-curated exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield.

The Hepworth Wakefield has a potential blockbuster on its hands this March with Disobedient Bodies, curated by designer Mr Jonathan Anderson. Looking at how artists and designers from the 1920s onwards have interpreted the human form, the Northern Irish fashion star takes visitors on a voyage that connects both worlds.

That Mr Anderson is on board is something of a coup for The Hepworth, given that the 33-year-old designer is already in overdrive. He divides his time between Paris, where he is creative director of Spanish fashion house Loewe, and London, where he oversees his eponymous label J.W.Anderson. (LVMH owns the former and has a stake in the latter.) In a fast-paced industry known for burn-out, both jobs demand 12 collections a year. How, then, has he found the time to curate an exhibition? “When The Hepworth asked me a year and half ago, I did wonder if I could devote the time to it,” says Mr Anderson. “But the gallery is so amazing, what with it being in Wakefield, in a David Chipperfield building that has a river crashing against it, that I had to say yes.”

Ms Barbara Hepworth and Mr Henry Moore (in that order) are two of Mr Anderson’s favourite British artists, and The Hepworth Wakefield has about 200 works by the pair in its permanent collection. He first visited the gallery in 2014, and that same year his AW collections, which featured puffed sleeves, mid-century necklines and 7/8 trouser lengths, were inspired by Ms Hepworth. “She changed sculpture completely,” he says. “Moore had greater visibility and was better at gifting, but her contribution is totally underestimated. Art influences my work hugely and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’m totally obsessed by it.”

In the first room of the exhibition, Mr Anderson illustrates “how art and fashion have tackled the silhouette”. One of his favourite works at The Hepworth Wakefield is Mr Moore’s Reclining Figure (1936) in wood, and it appears alongside a photograph, taken by Mr Anderson’s frequent collaborator Mr Jamie Hawkesworth, of a model wrapped in ribbed knitwear, from the J.W.Anderson spring 2017 look book. Nearby, Mr Jean Arp’s 1962 sculpture S’élevant is shown alongside Mr Christian Dior’s 1952 La Cigale dress. A pleated dress by Mr Issey Miyake is placed alongside Mr Isamu Noguchi’s Akari lamp and a 1916 work by Mr Naum Gabo sits next to Comme des Garçons runway coats from 2012. Some of Mr Anderson’s own pieces, dating back to when he stole the show at London Fashion Week in 2008 with his debut menswear collection, are there, too. His see-through men’s suit in plastic, which is heat-sealed rather than stitched, is as outré as his oversized neon pink and yellow sweater dress with to-the-floor sleeves, which are shown alongside Ms Sarah Lucas’s stockinged 2006 work, Grace.

Mr Anderson is known for his magpie’s eye – Tudor ruffles one day, Mr David Bowie the next – and for shifting adroitly between centuries and disciplines, taking in art, craft, design and technology along the way. “There’s no order or chronology or method,” he says. “My approach is more of a reactionary thing, rather like the way we consume media today.” To this end, a second room in the exhibition is turned into “an exploding mood board, a live research lab”. Fabric swatches from the artists Mr Paul Nash, Mr Eric Ravilious and Ms Vanessa Bell (taken from Mr Anderson’s personal collection) are displayed with photos and paintings in “one giant modem of information”.

In addition to textiles and fashion, Mr Anderson also collects ceramics by British potters Ms Lucie Rie and Mr John Ward and contemporary Irish maker Ms Sara Flynn. “For a long time, British modernism was obscure and undervalued,” he says. “But it’s so versatile and so much easier to get into than the high-end contemporary art market. It’s good that it’s having a major turnaround.”

The likes of Mr Anderson, of course, are partly responsible for this. In 2015, when his fellow designers headed to Palm Springs and Cannes to launch their resort collections, Mr Anderson took a select group of influencers to Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge. The home of art collectors Mr Jim and Ms Helen Ede, it became a hotbed of British modernism in the 1920s. Here, Mr Anderson placed models sporting rainbow-striped knits and silver buckled shoes next to Mr Ben Nicholson paintings and Arts and Crafts furniture.

Disobedient Bodies is the first of many collaborations The Hepworth Wakefield has planned for the future. “Collaborations with leading innovators across the arts offer our audiences exciting new ways in which to enjoy and experience visual art,” says gallery director Mr Simon Wallis. Nowhere does this ring more true than in the third room, an interactive space that Mr Anderson will fill with his 7m-high knitted sculptures. They will hang from the ceiling “like trees”, and visitors will be able to wander freely among them.

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