The Tate St Ives continues to thrive, presenting modern and contemporary art which is often created in or associated with Cornwall.

Its location in St Ives, with dramatic views across the town and harbour to the east and Porthmeor Beach to the north, provides a unique opportunity to view work in the surroundings in which, in many cases, it was actually created.

Since the late nineteenth century two 'schools' of art have grown up in west Cornwall, at Newlyn and St Ives. Before Tate St Ives opened in 1993, there had been no public gallery dedicated to the distinctive modern art of St Ives.

Tate St Ives presents twentieth-century art in the context of Cornwall. At the heart of the programme of displays and activities is a body of work for which the town of St Ives is internationally known - the modernist art produced by artists associated with the town and its surrounding area from the 1920s onwards.

Visiting the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden is a unique experience, offering a remarkable insight into the work and outlook of one of Britain's most important twentieth century artists.

Sculptures in bronze, stone and wood are on display in the Museum and Garden, along with paintings, drawings and archive material.

Barbara Hepworth first came to live in Cornwall with her husband Ben Nicholson and their young family at the outbreak of war in 1939. She lived and worked in Trewyn studios, now the Hepworth Museum, from 1949 until her death in 1975.

Following her wish to establish her home and studio as a museum of her work, Trewyn Studio and much of the artist's work remaining there was given to the nation and placed in the care of the Tate Gallery in 1980.

Barbara Hepworth wrote: “Finding Trewyn Studio was a sort of magic. Here was a studio, a yard and garden where I could work in open air and space.”

When she first arrived at Trewyn Studio, Hepworth was still largely preoccupied with stone and wood carving, but during the 1950s she increasingly made sculpture in bronze as well. This led her to create works on a more monumental scale, for which she used the garden as a viewing area.

The bronzes now in the garden are seen in the environment for which they were created, and most are in the positions in which the artist herself placed them. The garden itself was laid out by Barbara Hepworth with help from a friend, the composer Priaulx Rainier.

The studio is typical of the stone-built houses in St Ives, and her living room is furnished as she left it.

Barbara Hepworth's workshop also includes a queue of uncut stones that one visitor has described as: "still waiting for their moment in the shadow of her workshop".

Modernism became firmly established in St Ives during the Second World War, when Barbara Hepworth settled there, attracting a circle of other modernist artists such as Naum Gabo. These artists shared an intellectual and aesthetic outlook that was essentially European rather than insular, but the work they produced in St Ives was nevertheless often deeply influenced by the physical forms and quality of light of their local surroundings.

The displays at Tate St Ives change regularly, allowing a different selection from Tate's extensive collection of St Ives art to be shown each year.

Tate continues to acquire work for its collections, and remains committed to showing works associated with Cornwall in both London and Liverpool as well as in St Ives. Moreover, the links between the arts and artists of west Cornwall and other centres around the world mean that Tate St Ives also displays related works by non-Cornish artists.