English Abstract sculptor
Henry Moore()
• Henry Moore was born in Castleford, Yorkshire, as the
son of a coalmining engineer. He was the seventh of
eight children in his family. he won a scholarship to
Castleford Secondary School, where his art teacher
influenced him strongly. During these years Moore
began carving in wood and modeling clay, and he
consciously decided to become a sculptor after hearing
of Michelangelo's achievements at the age of eleven.
• He then studied at Leeds School of Art and the Royal
College of Art, London. Throughout his long career he
experimented with many styles including abstract and
biomorphic art and in 1936 he took part in the
International Surrealist exhibition. His primary concern,
however has been with the human figure.
http://www.boltonmuseums.org.uk/HTML/art_sculpture_
moore.asp
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1898 Born July 30 in Castleford, Yorkshire.
1919-21 Studies at the Leeds School of Art.
1921-25 Studies at the Royal College of Art, London.
1925-32 Teaches at the Royal College of Art, London.
1928 First solo exhibition at the Warren Gallery, London.
1932-39 Teaches at the Chelsea School of Art.
1943 First solo exhibition in New York at the Buchholz Gallery.
1946 Retrospective exhibition presented by The Museum of Modern Art,
New York.
1948 Awarded the International Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale.
1951 Retrospective exhibition presented by the Tate Gallery, London.
1961 Elected member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and
Letters, New York.
1968 Exhibition in honor of the artist's 70th birthday at the Tate Gallery,
London.
1972 Retrospective exhibition at Forte di Belvedere, Florence.
1977 Establishes The Henry Moore Foundation in Much Hadam,
Hertfordshire.
1978 Exhibitions in honor of the artist's 80th birthday at the Serpentine
Gallery, London and City Art Gallery, Bradford.
1983 Exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
1986 Dies August 31 in Hertfordshire
• During the Blitzkrieg of London in the early 1940s,
Moore executed numerous drawings of people
waiting out the bombings in the London
Underground that reflected his deep-seated
concern for the human situation. These drawings
are now known as Moore’s shelter drawings. After
this his success exploded in 1941, when
he was appointed member of the board
of " The Tate Gallery ".
http://www.rollins.edu/cfam/pages/collection/moore.
html
• Henry Moore's sculpture is among the most
recognized and influential of the twentieth
century. His sculpture and drawings have been
exhibited worldwide, and his monumental public
works can be seen throughout the United States
and Europe. Some of the artist's sculptures
appear more abstract than others, but all exhibit
a love of natural forms and materials, and a
great simplicity. A profound reverence for the
dignity of the human (usually female) form led
Moore to execute a series of variations on the
reclining figure throughout his
life.http://www.rollins.edu/cfam/pages/collection/
moore.html
Reclining Woman 1930
green Hornton stone
59.7 x 92.7 x 41.3 cm
Purchased 1956
National Gallery of Canada (no. 6499)
Four-Piece Composition: Reclining Figure
1934
Cumberland alabaster
6 7/8 x 18 x 8 in. (17.5 x 45.7 x 20.3 cm)
Tate Gallery, London
• When Henry Moore's mother developed a
painful case of sciatica, her dutiful son
took to rubbing her hip to ease the
discomfort. Years later, Moore remarked
that nearly all of his sculpture was
fundamentally about his mother's hip.
Reclining Figure
1935-36
Elmwood
h. 19; l. 35; d. 15 in. (48.3; 89; 38 cm)
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
Henry Moore (England, 1898-1986)
Reclining Figures, 1940
Pencil, pen and ink, colored crayon, and gouache,
with areas scratched away, on white wove paper
1979.151
Given in memory of Pamela Djerassi, Class of 1971,
by her parents
Draped Reclining Figure
1952-53
Bronze
102 x 152 cm
Museum Ludwig, Cologne
Six Reclining Figures 1963
lithograph on paper
41.9 x 50.8 cm
Gift of Mira Godard, 1975
75/1
© 2000 The Henry Moore Foundation
Hill arches 1973
bronze
no.4 from an edition of 4
247.0 (h) x 548.0 (w) x 247.0 (d) cm
not signed, not dated
Purchased 1975
NGA 1976.1464
© The Henry Moore Foundation
Three Standing Figures, 1953.
Bronze, 73.2 x 68 x 29 cm,
including base. Peggy
Guggenheim Collection. 76.2553
PG 194.
• In its abstraction of the human figure and exaggeration
of isolated anatomical features, this work is related to
African sculpture and to the Surrealist sculpture of Pablo
Picasso and Alberto Giacometti. Within Henry Moore’s
own body of work, Three Standing Figures can be seen
in connection with the “shelter” drawings of the early
1940s, in which the artist explored the psychological
interaction of groups, and with the monumental Three
Standing Figures of 1947–49 erected at Battersea Park
in London. Classicizing elements of the latter, however
remote, endure in the Peggy Guggenheim work. The
grouping of three figures, their contrapposto stances, the
variety of rhetorical gestures, and the echoes of drapery
creases and swags provide visual analogies with ancient
sources. Typically, Moore conflates the human figure
with the forms of inanimate natural materials such as
bone and rock. The perforations through the mass of the
sculptured bodies suggest a slow process of erosion by
water or wind.
Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge, 1961
(cast 1976)
Bronze, H. 137 1/2 in. (349.3 cm.)
Bequest of Gordon Hanes, 97.1
Large Spindle Piece, modeled
1968-69, cast 1974
Bronze, H. 128 x W. 127 x
Diam. 77 1/4 in. (325.1 x 322.6
x 196.2 cm.)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon
Hanes, 80.6.3
Reclining Figure: Angles
1979
Bronze
over-life-sized
Henry Moore Foundation
Reclining Figure: Idea for Sculpture, 1982
Watercolor, gouache, black wax crayon, and white poster paint
(impasted) on photocopier paper, 8.25 x 11.6 inches (21.0 x 29.5 cm)
Purchased with funds from the Wally Findlay Acquisition Fund,
acc. no. 91-19-P
The Henry Moore Foundation
• The Henry Moore Foundation is a registered charity, setup and generously endowed by Mr. Moore in 1977 'to
advance the education of the public by the promotion of
their appreciation of the fine arts and in particular the
works of Henry Moore'. It operates from Perry Green,
and at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds.
The Foundation also supports a wide range of projects
and activities in the visual arts through its donations
programme. Among areas covered are student
bursaries, fellowships for artists and grants to art
institutions, galleries and museums.
The Foundation's three main programme areas are:
• http://www.henry-moore-fdm.co.uk/hmf/
Henry Moore Collections and
exhibitions
• Based in Perry Green, Henry Moore Collections and
Exhibitions maintains the Foundation's very important
collection of Moore's work, consisting of sculpture,
drawings and graphics, many given by Moore in 1977.
Henry Moore Collections and Exhibitions is actively
involved in curating, mounting and supporting exhibitions
of Moore's work around the world, as well as at the
studios and grounds at Perry Green, which can be seen
by appointment during the Summer
months. http://www.henry-moore-fdm.co.uk/hmf/
The Henry Moore Institute
• The Henry Moore Institute is located in Leeds,
the city where Moore began his training as an
artist. It is a centre dedicated to the study of
sculpture with a programme comprising three
integrated elements; Collections, Exhibitions and
Research. The programme draws on artists,
writers, curators and different kinds of historians,
in discussions, in writing, in research projects
and in exhibitions.
http://www.henry-moore-fdm.co.uk/hmf/
Contemporary Projects
• Contemporary Projects was set up at the
beginning of 2001. Operating from Perry Green
its aim is to create exceptional opportunities for
artists to research and make new work; and to
link The Henry Moore Foundation with other
organizations that commission and exhibit
contemporary art.
Contemporary Projects works in a variety of
ways ranging from small scale collaborations
with artists to high profile international
events. http://www.henry-moore-fdm.co.uk/hmf/
" The purpose of my sculpture is not beauty such as it
is understood by the artists of classic Greece and the
Renaissance. there is an enormous difference
between the beauty of the expression and the power
of the expression. The former tends to satisfy senses.
The later possesses a vitality of the spirit which, in my
opinion, is deeper and more suggestive... "