Henry Spencer MooreOMCHFBA (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract monumentalbronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore also produced many drawings, including a series depicting Londoners sheltering fromthe Blitz during theSecond World War, along with other graphic works on paper.
His forms are usually abstractions of the human figure, typically depicting mother-and-child or reclining figures. Moore's works are usually suggestive of the female body, apart from a phase in the 1950s when he sculpted family groups. His forms are generally pierced or contain hollow spaces. Many interpreters liken the undulating form of his reclining figures to the landscape and hills of hisYorkshire birthplace.
Moore became well known through his carvedmarble and larger-scale abstract cast bronze sculptures, and was instrumental in introducing a particular form ofmodernism to the United Kingdom. His ability in later life to fulfil large-scale commissions made him exceptionally wealthy. Despite this, he lived frugally; most of the money he earned went towards endowing theHenry Moore Foundation, which continues to support education and promotion of the arts.
Moore was born inCastleford,West Riding of Yorkshire, England, to Mary (née Baker) and Raymond Spencer Moore. His father was of Irish descent and became pit deputy (responsible for safety) and then under-manager of the Wheldalecolliery in Castleford. He was anautodidact with an interest in music and literature. Determined that his sons would not work in the mines, he saw formal education as the route to their advancement.[1] Henry was the seventh of eight children in a family that often struggled with poverty. He attended infant and junior schools in Castleford, where he beganmodelling in clay andcarving in wood. He professed to have decided to become a sculptor when he was eleven after hearing ofMichelangelo's achievements at a Sunday School reading.[2]
On his second attempt he was accepted atCastleford Secondary School, which several of his siblings had attended, where his headmaster soon noticed his talent and interest inmedieval sculpture.[3] His art teacher, Alice Gostick, broadened his knowledge of art, and with her encouragement, he determined to make art his career; first by sitting for examinations for a scholarship to the local art college.[4] Moore's earliest recorded carvings – a plaque for the Scott Society at Castleford Secondary School, and a Roll of Honour commemorating the boys who went to fight in the First World War from the school – were executed around this time.[5]
Despite his early promise, Moore's parents had been against him training as a sculptor, a vocation they considered manual labour with few career prospects. After a brief introduction as a student teacher, Moore became a teacher at the school he had attended.[4] Upon turning eighteen, Moore volunteered for army service in theFirst World War. He was the youngest man in thePrince of Wales' Own Civil Service Rifles regiment and was injured in 1917 in agas attack, on 30 November atBourlon Wood,[6] during theBattle of Cambrai.[7] After recovering in hospital, he saw out the remainder of the war as aphysical training instructor, only returning to France asthe Armistice was signed. He recalled later, "for me the war passed in a romantic haze of trying to be a hero."[8] This attitude changed as he reflected on the destructiveness of war and in 1940 he wrote, in a letter to his friend Arthur Sale, that "a year or two after [the war] the sight of a khaki uniform began to mean everything in life that was wrong and wasteful andanti-life. And I still have that feeling."[9]
Moore's reclining figures, such as the 1930Reclining Woman (bottom), were influenced byChac Mool figures, such as this one (top) fromChichen Itza.
After the war, Moore received an ex-serviceman's grant to continue his education and in 1919 he became a student at the Leeds School of Art (nowLeeds Arts University), which set up a sculpture studio especially for him. At the college, he metBarbara Hepworth, a fellow student who would also become a well-known British sculptor, and began a friendship and gentle professional rivalry that lasted for many years. In Leeds, Moore also had access to the modernist works in the collection of SirMichael Sadler, the universityVice-Chancellor, which had a pronounced effect on his development.[10] In 1921, Moore won a scholarship to study at theRoyal College of Art in London, along with Hepworth and other Yorkshire contemporaries.[11] While in London, Moore extended his knowledge ofprimitive art and sculpture, studying theethnographic collections at theBritish Museum.[12]
The student sculptures of both Moore and Hepworth followed the standard romanticVictorian style, and included natural forms, landscapes and figurative modelling of animals. Moore later became uncomfortable with classically derived ideals; his later familiarity with primitivism and the influence of sculptors such asConstantin Brâncuși,Jacob Epstein,Henri Gaudier-Brzeska andFrank Dobson led him to the method ofdirect carving, in which imperfections in the material and marks left by tools became part of the finished sculpture. Having adopted this technique, Moore was in conflict with academic tutors who did not appreciate such a modern approach. During one exercise set byDerwent Wood (the professor of sculpture at the Royal College), Moore was asked to reproduce a marblerelief ofDomenico Rosselli'sThe Virgin and Child[13] by first modelling the relief inplaster, then reproducing it in marble using the mechanical aid known as a "pointing machine", a technique called "pointing". Instead, he carved the relief directly, even marking the surface to simulate the prick marks that would have been left by the pointing machine.[14]
In 1924, Moore won a six-month travelling scholarship which he spent inNorthern Italy studying the great works ofMichelangelo,Giotto di Bondone,Giovanni Pisano and several otherOld Masters. During this period he also visited Paris, took advantage of the timed-sketching classes at theAcadémie Colarossi, and viewed, in theTrocadero, a plaster cast of aToltec-Maya sculptural form, theChac Mool, which he had previously seen in book illustrations. The reclining figure was to have a profound effect upon Moore's work, becoming the primary motif of his sculpture.[15]
On returning to London, Moore undertook a seven-year teaching post at the Royal College of Art. He was required to work two days a week, which allowed him time to spend on his own work. His first public commission,West Wind (1928–29), was one of the eight reliefs of the 'four winds' high on the walls ofLondon Underground's headquarters at55 Broadway.[16] The other 'winds' were carved by contemporary sculptors includingEric Gill with the ground-level pieces provided byEpstein. 1928 saw Moore's first solo exhibition, held at the Warren Gallery in London.[17] On 19 July 1929, Moore married Irina Radetsky, a painting student at the Royal College.[18] Irina was born inKyiv in 1907. Her father was killed in theRussian Revolution and her mother was evacuated to Paris where she married a British army officer. Irina was smuggled to Paris a year later and went to school there until she was 16, after which she was sent to live with her stepfather's relatives inBuckinghamshire.[19]
Irina found security in her marriage to Moore and was soon posing for him. Shortly after they married, the couple moved to a studio inHampstead at 11a Parkhill Road NW3, joining a small colony ofavant-garde artists who were taking root there. Shortly afterward, Hepworth and her second husbandBen Nicholson moved into a studio around the corner from Moore, whileNaum Gabo,Roland Penrose,Cecil Stephenson and the art criticHerbert Read also lived in the area (Read referred to the area as "a nest of gentle artists").[20] The area was also a stopping-off point for many refugee artists, architects and designers from continental Europe en route to America.[21]
In 1932, after six years teaching at the Royal College, Moore took up a post as the Head of the Department of Sculpture at theChelsea School of Art.[22] Artistically, Moore, Hepworth and other members of TheSeven and Five Society would develop steadily more abstract work,[23] partly influenced by their frequent trips to Paris and their contact with leading progressive artists, notablyPablo Picasso,Georges Braque,Jean Arp andAlberto Giacometti. Moore flirted withSurrealism, joiningPaul Nash'smodern art movement "Unit One", in 1933. In 1934, Moore visited Spain; he visited thecave of Altamira (which he described as the "Royal Academy of Cave Painting"), Madrid, Toledo and Pamplona.[24]
In 1936, Moore joined a group of surrealist artists founded byRoland Penrose, and the same year was honorary treasurer to the organising committee of theLondon International Surrealist Exhibition.[25] In 1937,Roland Penrose purchased an abstract 'Mother and Child' in stone from Moore that he displayed in the front garden of his house in Hampstead. The work proved controversial with other residents and the local press ran a campaign against the piece over the next two years. At this time Moore gradually transitioned from direct carving to casting in bronze, modelling preliminarymaquettes in clay or plaster rather than making preparatory drawings.[citation needed]
In 1938, Moore metKenneth Clark for the first time.[26] From this time, Clark became an unlikely but influential champion of Moore's work,[27] and through his position as member of theArts Council of Great Britain he secured exhibitions and commissions for the artist.[28]
Women and Children in the Tube (1940) (Art.IWM ART LD 759)At the Coal Face. A Miner Pushing a Tub (1942) (Art.IWM ART LD 2240)
At the outbreak of the Second World War the Chelsea School of Art was evacuated to Northampton and Moore resigned his teaching post. During the war, Moore produced powerful drawings of Londoners sleeping in the London Underground while sheltering fromthe Blitz.[29]Kenneth Clark, the chairman of theWar Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC), had previously tried to recruit Moore as a full-time salaried war artist and now agreed to purchase some of the shelter drawings and issued contracts for further examples. The shelter drawings WAAC acquired were completed between the autumn of 1940 and the spring of 1941 and are regarded as among the finest products of the WAAC scheme.[30] In August 1941, WAAC commissioned Moore to draw miners working underground at the Wheldale Colliery in Yorkshire, where his father had worked at the start of the century. Moore drew the people in the shelters as passively waiting the all-clear while miners aggressively worked the coal-faces.[31] It has been suggested that Moore's wartime drawings of the Underground and coalmines were inspired, in part, by Gustave Doré's illustrations for Dante's 'Divine Comedy'.[32] Moore's drawings helped to boost his international reputation, particularly in America where examples were included in the WAACBritain at War exhibition which toured North America throughout the war.[30]
After their Hampstead home was hit by bomb shrapnel in September 1940, Moore and Irina moved out of London to live in a farmhouse called Hoglands in the hamlet ofPerry Green nearMuch Hadham,Hertfordshire.[33] This was to become Moore's home and workshop for the rest of his life. Despite acquiring significant wealth later in life, Moore never felt the need to move to larger premises and, apart from the addition of a number of outbuildings and studios, the house changed little over the years. In 1943 he received a commission fromSt Matthew's Church, Northampton, to carve a Madonna and Child; this sculpture was the first in an important series of family-group sculptures.[34]
After the war and following several earlier miscarriages, Irina gave birth to their daughter, Mary Moore, in March 1946.[35] The child was named after Moore's mother, who had died two years earlier. Both the loss of his mother and the arrival of a baby focused Moore's mind on the family, which he expressed in his work by producing many "mother-and-child" compositions, although reclining and internal/external figures also remained popular. In the same year, Moore made his first visit to America when a retrospective exhibition of his work opened at theMuseum of Modern Art in New York City.[36]
Before the war, Moore had been approached by educatorHenry Morris, who was trying to reform education with his concept of theVillage College. Morris had engagedWalter Gropius as the architect for his second village college atImpington nearCambridge, and he wanted Moore to design a major public sculpture for the site. The County Council, however, could not afford Gropius's full design, and scaled back the project when Gropius emigrated to America. Lacking funds, Morris had to cancel Moore's sculpture, which had not progressed beyond the maquette stage.[37] Moore was able to reuse the design in 1950 for a similar commission outside a secondary school for the new town ofStevenage. This time, the project was completed andFamily Group became Moore's first large-scale public bronze.[38]
The UNESCO piece being moved, in 1963, to allow for building work
On the campus of theUniversity of Chicago in December 1967, 25 years to the minute[44] after the team of physicists led byEnrico Fermi achieved the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, Moore'sNuclear Energy was unveiled on the site of what was once the university's football field stands, in therackets court beneath which the experiments had taken place.[45] This 12-foot-tall piece in the middle of a large, open plaza is often thought to represent amushroom cloud topped by a massive human skull, but Moore's interpretation was very different. He once told a friend that he hoped viewers would "go around it, looking out through the open spaces, and that they may have a feeling of being in a cathedral."[46] InChicago, Illinois, Moore also commemorated science with a large bronze sundial, locally namedMan Enters the Cosmos (1980), which was commissioned to recognise thespace exploration program.[47]
Moore in his studio in England (1975), byAllan Warren
The last three decades of Moore's life continued in a similar vein; several major retrospectives took place around the world, notably a very prominent exhibition in the summer of 1972 in the grounds of theForte di Belvedere overlookingFlorence. Following the pioneering documentary 'Henry Moore', produced byJohn Read in 1951, he appeared in many films. In 1964, for instance, Moore was featured in the documentary "5 British Sculptors (Work and Talk)" by American filmmakerWarren Forma. By the end of the 1970s, there were some 40 exhibitions a year featuring his work. The number of commissions continued to increase; he completedKnife Edge Two Piece in 1962 forCollege Green near theHouses of Parliament in London. According to Moore, "When I was offered the site near theHouse of Lords ... I liked the place so much that I didn't bother to go and see an alternative site inHyde Park—one lonely sculpture can be lost in a large park. The House of Lords site is quite different. It is next to a path where people walk and it has a few seats where they can sit and contemplate it."[48]
As his wealth grew, Moore began to worry about his legacy. With the help of his daughter Mary, he set up the Henry Moore Trust in 1972, with a view to protecting his estate fromdeath duties. By 1977, he was paying close to a million pounds a year inincome tax; to mitigate his tax burden, he established theHenry Moore Foundation as a registered charity with Irina and Mary as trustees. The Foundation was established to encourage the public appreciation of the visual arts and especially the works of Moore. It now runs his house and estate atPerry Green, with a gallery, sculpture park and studios.[49]
In 1979, Henry Moore became unexpectedly known in Germany when his sculptureLarge Two Forms was installed in the forecourt of theGerman Chancellery in Bonn, which was the capital city ofWest Germany prior to German reunification in October 1990.[50]
Moore died on 31 August 1986 at his home in Perry Green. His body was interred at the churchyard of St Thomas's Church.[51]
TheArt Gallery of Ontario's Henry Moore collection is the largest public collection of his works in the world
Moore's signature form is a reclining figure. Moore's exploration of this form, under the influence of the Toltec-Mayan figure he had seen at the Louvre, was to lead him to increasing abstraction as he turned his thoughts towards experimentation with the elements of design. Moore's earlier reclining figures deal principally with mass, while his later ones contrast the solid elements of the sculpture with the space, not only round them but generally through them as he pierced the forms with openings.[citation needed]
Earlier figures are pierced in a conventional manner, in which bent limbs separate from and rejoin the body. The later, more abstract figures are often penetrated by spaces directly through the body, by which means Moore explores and alternates concave and convex shapes. These more extreme piercings developed in parallel withBarbara Hepworth's sculptures.[52] Hepworth first pierced a torso after misreading a review of one of Henry Moore's early shows.[citation needed] The plasterReclining Figure: Festival (1951) in theTate, is characteristic of Moore's later sculptures: an abstract female figure intercut with voids. As with much of the post-War work, there are several bronze casts of this sculpture.[citation needed] When Moore's niece asked why his sculptures had such simple titles, he replied,
All art should have a certain mystery and should make demands on the spectator. Giving a sculpture or a drawing too explicit a title takes away part of that mystery so that the spectator moves on to the next object, making no effort to ponder the meaning of what he has just seen. Everyone thinks that he or she looks but they don't really, you know.[53]
Moore's early work is focused ondirect carving, in which the form of the sculpture evolves as the artist repeatedly whittles away at the block. In the 1930s, Moore's transition intomodernism paralleled that of Barbara Hepworth; the two exchanged new ideas with each other and several other artists then living in Hampstead. Moore made many preparatorysketches and drawings for each sculpture. Most of these sketchbooks have survived and provide insight into Moore's development. He placed great importance on drawing; in old age, when he had arthritis, he continued to draw.[54]
After the Second World War, Moore's bronzes took on their larger scale, which was particularly suited for public art commissions. As a matter of practicality, he largely abandoned direct carving, and took on several assistants to help produce the larger forms based on maquettes. By the end of the 1940s, he produced sculptures increasingly by modelling, working out the shape in clay or plaster before casting the final work in bronze using thelost wax technique. These maquettes often began as small forms shaped by Moore's hands—a process that gives his work an organic feeling. They are from the body.At his home in Much Hadham, Moore built up a collection of natural objects; skulls, driftwood, pebbles, rocks and shells, which he would use to provide inspiration for organic forms. For his largest works, he usually produced a half-scale, working model before scaling up for the finalmoulding andcasting at a bronzefoundry. Moore often refined the final full plaster shape and added surface marks before casting.[citation needed]
Moore produced at least three significant examples of architectural sculpture during his career. In 1928, despite his own self-described "extreme reservations", he accepted his first public commission forWest Wind for theLondon Underground Building at55 Broadway in London, joining the company ofJacob Epstein andEric Gill.[55] In 1953, he completed a four-part screen carved inPortland stone for the Time-Life Building in New Bond Street, London,[56] and in 1955 Moore turned to his first and only work in carved brick,Wall Relief at the Bouwcentrum in Rotterdam. The brick relief was sculpted with 16,000 bricks by two Dutch bricklayers under Moore's supervision.[57]
The aftermath of theSecond World War,The Holocaust, and the age of the atomic bomb instilled in the sculpture of the mid-1940s a sense that art should return to its pre-cultural and pre-rational origins. In the literature of the day, writers such asJean-Paul Sartre advocated a similar reductive philosophy.[58] At an introductory speech in New York City for an exhibition of one of the finestmodernist sculptors,Alberto Giacometti, Sartre spoke of "The beginning and the end of history".[59] Moore's sense of England emerging undefeated from siege led to his focus on pieces characterised by endurance and continuity.[58]
Most sculptors who emerged during the height of Moore's fame, and in the aftermath of his death, found themselves cast in his shadow. By the late 1940s, Moore was a worldwide celebrity; he was the voice of British sculpture, and of British modernism in general. The next generation was constantly compared against him, and reacted by challenging his legacy, his "establishment" credentials and his position. At the 1952Venice Biennale, eight new British sculptors produced theirGeometry of Fear works as a direct contrast to the ideals behind Moore's idea ofEndurance, Continuity;[60] his large bronzeDouble Standing Figure stood outside the British pavilion, and contrasted strongly with the rougher and more angular works inside.[61]
Henry Moore Foundation helps to preserve his legacy by supporting sculptors and creating exhibitions, its goal is to develop appreciation for visual arts. The Foundation was established by Henry and his family in 1977 in England, and still working.[66]
In December 2005, the two tonReclining Figure (1969–70) – insured for £3 million – was lifted by crane from the grounds of the Henry Moore Foundation on to a lorry and has not been recovered.[67] Two men were jailed for a year in 2012 for stealing a sculpture calledSundial (1965) and the bronze plinth of another work, also from the foundation's estate.[68] In October 2013Standing Figure (1950), one of four Moore pieces inGlenkiln Sculpture Park, estimated to be worth £3 million, was stolen.[69][70]
In 2012, the council of theLondon Borough of Tower Hamlets announced its plans to sell another version ofDraped Seated Woman 1957–58, a 1.6-tonne bronze sculpture.[71] Moore, a well-known socialist, had sold the sculpture at a fraction of its market value to the formerLondon County Council on the understanding that it would be displayed in a public space and might enrich the lives of those living in a socially deprived area. NicknamedOld Flo, it was installed on the Stifford council estate in 1962 but was vandalised and moved to theYorkshire Sculpture Park in 1997. Tower Hamlets Council later had considered movingDraped Seated Woman to private land inCanary Wharf but instead chose to "explore options" for a sale.[72] In response to the announcement an open letter was published inThe Guardian, signed by Mary Moore, the artist's daughter, bySir Nicholas Serota, Director of theTate Gallery, by filmmakerDanny Boyle, and by artists includingJeremy Deller. The letter said that the sale "goes against the spirit of Henry Moore's original sale" of the work.[73] The sale was delayed by a legal case, and a change in mayor resulted in it being retained, it is, as of 2024[update], on display inCabot Square in London Docklands.
Today, theHenry Moore Foundation manages the artist's former home at Perry Green in Hertfordshire as a visitor destination, with 70 acres (28 ha) of sculpture grounds as well as his restored house and studios. It also runs the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds which organises exhibitions and research activities in international sculpture. Popular interest in Moore's work was perceived by some to have declined for a while in the UK but has been revived in recent times by exhibitions including atKew Gardens in 2007,Tate Britain in 2010, andHatfield House in 2011. The foundation he endowed continues to play an essential role in promoting contemporary art in the United Kingdom and abroad through its grants and exhibitions programme.[74]
The world's largest collection of Moore's work is open to the public and is housed in the house and grounds of the 70-acre estate that was Moore's home for 40years inPerry Green in Hertfordshire. The site and the collection are now owned by theHenry Moore Foundation.[75]
In December 2005, thieves entered a courtyard at the Henry Moore Foundation and stole a cast of Moore'sReclining Figure 1969–70 (LH 608) – a 3.6 m (12 ft) long, 2.1-tonne bronze sculpture. Closed-circuit-television footage showed that they used a crane to lower the piece onto a stolen flatbed truck. A substantial reward was offered by the foundation for information leading to its recovery. By May 2009, after a thorough investigation, British officials said they believe the work, once valued at £3 million was probably sold forscrap metal, fetching about £5,000.[76][77] In July 2012 the 22 inches (56 cm) bronzeSundial 1965, valued at £500,000, was stolen from the Moore Foundation.[78] Later that year, following the details of the theft being publicised on the BBCCrimewatch television programme, the work was recovered, and the thieves were sentenced to twelve months' custody.[79]
Moore presented 36 sculptures, as well as drawings, maquettes and other works to theTate Gallery in 1978.[80]
Works by Moore are in the collections of institutions in 25 states and the District of Columbia.[83]
There are eleven large sculptural bronze works by Moore in the grounds of theNelson-Atkins Museum of Art inKansas City, Missouri.[84][85] There is also a large bronze, the "Seated Woman" of 1957, inside the museum.[86] This is the largest collection of Moore's monumental bronzes in the United States.[87] The museum also contains about 43 smaller sculptures by Moore which are usually not on display. The museum's holdings also include a few works on paper and four large woven pieces, titled "Seated Figures: Ideas for Terracotta" (1981–1982), which are 7–8 foot long tapestries by British weavers based on drawings by Moore.[88] Twenty-eight more tapestries were produced during Moore's lifetime.[89]
He was a trustee of both theNational Gallery andTate Gallery.[96] His proposal that a wing of the latter should be devoted to his sculptures aroused hostility among some artists. In 1975, he became the first president of theTurner Society,[97] which had been founded to campaign for a separate museum in which the wholeTurner Bequest[98] might be reunited, an aim defeated by the National Gallery and Tate Gallery.[citation needed]
Given to the City of London by Moore and the Contemporary Art Society in 1967,Knife Edge Two Piece 1962–65 is displayed inAbingdon Street Gardens, opposite theHouses of Parliament, where its regular appearance in the background of televised news reports from Westminster makes it Moore's most prominent piece in Britain. The ownership ofKnife Edge Two Piece 1962–65 was disputed until its 2011 acquisition by the Parliamentary Art Collection.[99]
By the end of his career, Moore was the world's most successful living artist at auction. In 1982, four years before his death,Sotheby's in New York sold a 6-foot (1.8 m)Reclining Figure (1945), for $1.2 million to collector Wendell Cherry. Although a first record of $4.1 million was set in 1990, Moore's market slumped during the recession that followed. In 2012, his eight-foot bronze,Reclining Figure: Festival (1951) sold for a record £19.1 million atChristie's, making him the second most expensive 20th-century British artist afterFrancis Bacon.[100]
^Cork, Richard (1985).Art Beyond the Gallery in Early 20th Century England: In Early 20th Century England. Yale University Press. p. 249.ISBN0-300-03236-6.
^Chamot, Mary; Farr, Dennis;Butlin, Martin. "Henry MooreArchived 31 January 2009 at theWayback Machine". "The Modern British Paintings, drawings and Sculpture", Volume II. London: Oldbourne Press, 1964. 481. Retrieved on 5 September 2008.
^Chamot, Mary; Farr, Dennis; Butlin, Martin. "Henry Moore OM, CH". FromThe Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II. Reproduced at Tate.org. Retrieved on 21 August 2008.
^"The Turner Society".www.turnersociety.com. 2 December 2022. Retrieved7 January 2023.
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