Moore, Henry 2
ACHIEVEMENTS: Generally acknowledged as the most important British sculptor of the 20th century.
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 30th July 1898, Castleford, Yorkshire, England
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH: 31st Aug 1986, Perry Green, Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, England
DISCIPLINE: Art
FIELD: Sculptor
LANGUAGE: English
PARENTS: Father: Raymond Spencer Moore. Mother: Mary Baker.
SIBLINGS: 7
SPOUSE: Married Irina Radetsky, 1929.
CHILDREN: Mary, born 1946.
EDUCATION: Leeds School of Art (1919-1921), Royal College of Art in London (1921-24).
MAJOR WORK:
Sculptures:
Animal Head, 1921
The Arch, 1963/69
Bird Basket, 1939, private collection
Carving, 1935, private collection
Composition, 1931
Divided Oval: Butterly 1967
Draped Reclining Figure, 1952-53, bronze, Time - Life Building, Bond Street, London; also at the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Falling Warrior, 1956-57, Huddersfield, A.G.
Family Group, 1945-6, bronze, Museum of Modern Art, New York
FamilyGroup 1948-49, bronze, Barclay School, Stevenage
Figure with Clasped Hands, 1929
Girl, 1932, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection
Goslar Warrior, 1973-4, City Museum, Santa Cruz, California
Half-Figure, 1929
Hand Relief No. I, 1952
Head, 1929
Head and Ball, 1934, The Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, , England
Head of a Girl, 1922, City of Manchester Art Galleries: Rutherston Loan Collection
Head of a Girl, 1923
The Helmet, 1939-40, The Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, , England
Hill Arches, 1973, The Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, , England
Hole and Lump, 1934, The Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, , England
King and Queen, 1952-53, Keswick Estate, Dumfrieshire, Scotland
Knife Edge Two Piece, 1962-65, Houses of Parliament, London
Large Interior Form, ???? , Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City Sculpture Park, Missouri
Large Reclining Connected Forms, 1969, The Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, , England
Large Reclining Figure, 1984
Large Torso: Arch, 1962-63
Large Two Forms, 1966 and 1969
Locking Piece, 1963-64, Tate Gallery, London
Madonna and Child, 1943-44, Church of St Matthew, Northampton
Madonna and Chlid, 1948-49, St. Peter's Church, Claydon
Maquette for Mother and Child, 1952
Mask, 1929, Sir Philip Hendy
Memorial Figure, 1945-46, Dartington Hall, Devon, England
Mirror Knife Edge, 1977, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Moon Head, 1964
Mother and Child, 1922
Mother and Child, 1924-25, City Art Gallery, Manchester
Mother and Child, 1929
Mother and Child, 1931
Mother and Child, 1938
Mother and Child, 1967, The Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, England
Mother and Child on Ladderback Rocking Chair, 1952
Nuclear Energy, 1964-66, University of Chicago, Illinois
Reclining Figure, 1929, City Art Gallery, Leeds
Reclining Figure, 1935-36, The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Reclining Figure, 1939, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan
Reclining Figure, 1945-46, Cranbrook Academy of Art
Reclining Figure, 1957-58, UNESCO headquarters, Paris
Reclining Figure, 1959-64, Mrs. Irina Moore
Reclining Figure 1963-65, Lincoln Center, New York
Reclining Figure: Festival, 1951, Tate Gallery, London
Reclining Figure: Hand, ???? , Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City Sculpture Park, Missouri
Reclining Figure: Holes, 1976-68, Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, England
Reclining Figure: Angles, 1979, The Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, , England
Reclining Woman, 1926
Reclining Woman, 1930
Recumbent Figure, 1938, Tate Gallery, London
Roll of Honour, 1916, Castleford High School
Seated Woman, 1957, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City Sculpture Park, Missouri
Seated Woman: Thin Neck, 1961
Sheep Piece, 1971-72, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City Sculpture Park, Missouri
Snake, 1924, private collection
Standing Figure, 1950, Glenkiln, Dumbriesshire, Scotland
Standing Figure: Knife Edge, 1961
Standing Woman, 1923, City of Manchester Art Galleries: Rutherston Loan Collection
Stone Memorial, 1961
Stringed Relief, 1937, private collection
Three Bathers - After Cezanne, 1978
Three Forms Vertebrae, 1978
Three Piece Reclining Figure No. I, 1961-62, Los Angeles County Museum of Art sculpture garden
Three Piece Reclining Figure: Draped, 1975
Three Piece Sculpture: Vertebrae, 1968-69
Three Points, 1939-40
Three Standing Figures, 1947-48, Battersea Park, Borough of Wandsworth, London
Three Way Piece No. 1: Points, ???? , Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City Sculpture Park, Missouri
Three Way Piece No. 2: (The) Archer, 1964-65, University of Florida Library
Time-Life Screen: Maquette No. 1-3, 1952
Time-Life Screen: Maquette No. 4, 1952, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada
Time-Life Screen, 1952-53, Pearl Assurance, Time-Life Building, London
Two Forms, 1934, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Two Piece Points: Skull, 1969
Two Piece Reclining Figure No. I, 1959, Glenkiln, Dumfriesshire, Scotland
Two Piece Reclining Figure No. 2, 1960
Two Piece Reclining Figure No. 3, 1961, Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden, University of California at Los Angeles
Two Piece Reclining Figure No. 9, ???? , Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City Sculpture Park, Missouri
Upright Internal/External Form, 1953-54, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Upright Motive No. I: Glenkiln Cross, 1955-56, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands
Upright Motive No. 9, ????, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City Sculpture Park, Missouri
Warrior with Shield, 1953-54, Toronto, A.G. Ont.
West Wind, 1928, St James's Underground Building, London
Woman, 1957-58
Drawings:
Arch Rock, 1979, Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, England
The Artist's Hands, Notebook 1969-74, private collection
Child's Head: Three-Quarter View, 1977
Crucifixion, 1982
Dorothy Hodgkin's Hands, 1978, Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, England
Fourteen Ideas for Sculpture, 1939
Head of a Sleeping Figure, 1941, Mrs. Irina Moore
Miners at Work on the Coalface, 1942, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Mother and Child Sleeping, 1941, Mrs. Irina Moore
Old Apple Tree in Winter, 1977, Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, England
Pink and Green Sleepers, 1941, Tate Gallery, London
Pit Boys at Pithead, 1942, City Art Gallery, Wakefield
Reclining Figure: Sea Background, 1978, , Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, England
Reclining Figures, Man and Woman, 1981, , Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, England
Reclining Woman, 1928
Sculptural Object in Landscape, 1939
Seated Figure: Life Drawing, 1934
Seated Girl, 1925, Marlborough Fine Art Ltd.
September 3rd, 1939, The Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, , England
Sheep Sketchbook, 1972, Collection Fondation Veranneman, Kruishoutem, Belgium
Sleepers in the Tube, 1941, Mrs. Irina Moore
Standing Figure, 1923-4, Stephen Spender
Storm at Sea, 1970, Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, England
Studies of Sculpture in the British Museum, 1922-24
Study after Giovanni Bellini's Pieta, 1975, Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green, England
Study of Miners, 1942, Philip Gibbons
Tube Shelter Perspective: The Liverpool Street Extension, 1941, Tate Gallery, London
Two Sleepers, 1941, Chichester, Pallant House Gallery
Graphic Works:
Auden Poems, Moore Lithographs, 1973
Elephant Skull etchings, 1969
Hommage a Seghers, 1971
Lullaby, 1973
Sheep etchings, 1972 and 1974
Stonehenge lithographs, 1972-3
Trees V: Spreading Branches, 1979
LIFE AND TIMES:
Henry Moore grew up in the small industrial town of Castleford. The seventh child of an affectionate mother who was 'the absolute stability' and a self-educated father who started working in the coal mines at age nine, Moore decided to be a sculptor at age eleven, but entered the teaching profession at his father's insistence.
After serving in World War I, Moore enrolled at Leeds School of Art on an ex-serviceman's grant in 1919. He was introduced to non-Western sculpture by Roger Fry's 'Vision and Design' (1920) and enjoyed access to the Cezannes and African carvings in the personal collection of Vice Chancellor Sir Michael Sadler.
In 1921, a Royal Exhibition Scholarship enabled Moore to enroll at the Royal College of Art in London. During weekly visits to the British Museum, he filled sketchbooks with Paleolithic fertility goddesses, Cycladic and early Greek art, Sumerian, Egyptian and Etruscan sculpture, African, Oceanic, Peruvian and Pre-Columbian sculpture.
In 1924 Moore began teaching at the Royal College of Art. Almost all of Moore's works during this period were carved sculptures inspired by Pre-Columbian carvings. 'Snake' (1924) resembles an Aztec rattlesnake carving, and 'Mother and Child' (1924-5) established a lifelong theme. Like Jacob Epstein, Moore believed in direct carving and 'truth to materials'. In 1928 Moore had his first one-man exhibition and received his first public commission, 'West Wind.'
Moore met Irina Radetsky, a painting student, at the Royal College; they married in 1929 and moved to Hampstead, London, where they lived among friends such as Hepworth* andNicholson*. Inspired by the warrior priest Chacmool (Mexico City, Mus. N. Antropol.), Moore began working on 'Reclining Figure' (1929).
In the 1930s Moore continued to split time between art and teaching, becoming the first head of the department of sculpture at Chelsea School of Art while joining Paul Nash's avant-garde 7 and 5 Society and Unit One. He became influenced by both abstraction and Surrealism. In 1936 he signed the Surrealist manifesto and participated in the International Surrealist Exhibition in London, and his 'Two Forms' (1934) appeared in a Cubism and Abstract Art Exhibition.
Having visited Spain in 1934, Moore was much affected by the Spanish Civil War. In 1936 he joined fellow artists and writers in urging the British government to end its policy of non-intervention in Spain.
Around 1938 Moore began making models on which his larger sculptures were based and casting his work in lead or bronze from terracotta or plaster originals, abandoning a strict belief in direct carving.
When World War II broke out in 1939, the Chelsea School of Art was evacuated to Northampton, and Moore resigned from his post. In 1940 he and Irina moved to the small hamlet of Perry Green, north of London, where they rented an old farmhouse. When the owner decided to sell in 1941, the couple bought the property, where they lived for the rest of their lives.
That year, Moore's sketches of underground bomb shelters caught the eye of the War Artists' Advisory Committee. He gave one of the drawings, entitled "Underground Shelter with Figures," to architect Gropius*.
Considered among his greatest achievements, Moore's 'Shelter Drawings' along with subsequent drawings of the Yorkshire coal mines led to wider appreciation of his work. In 1941 Moore's first retrospective exhibition was held in Leeds. In 1942 he was appointed to the Art Panel of the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (later the Art Council of Great Britain). In 1943 his first one-man exhibition abroad was held in New York.
In 1943 Moore created a 'Madonna and Child' (1944), the first in a series of family-group sculptures (1944-9).
From the 1940s, Moore's career was on an upswing. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Leeds (1945), became a Trustee of both the Tate Gallery (1949-56) and the National Gallery (1955-1974). He executed several public commissions, including the monumental 'Reclining Figure' (1957-58) for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, 'Knife Edge Two Piece' (1962) for the Houses of Parliament, and 'Reclining Figure' (1963-5) for the Lincoln Center, New York. He received over 70 accolades from a dozen countries, e.g. International Sculpture Prizes at the Venice Biennale (1948) and at the Sao Paulo Biennale (1953), the British Order of Merit (1963), and the Erasmus Prize (1968).
The 1970s and 1980s saw many exhibitions of Moore's work, the finest being at Michelangelo's Forte di Belvedere in Florence (1972). The Henry Moore Sculpture Center opened at the Art Gallery of Ontario (1974), and an exhibition in Madrid became the first major foreign exhibition in Spain in 40-plus years (1981), followed by a retrospective in New York (1983), exhibitions in Hong Kong and Japan (1986), and the first major posthumous exhibition in New Delhi (1987).
Despite his wealth, Moore remained extremely accessible. He refused a knighthood in 1950. His way of life also remained unchanged. Works by artists such as Seurat, Degas, and Goya and period carvings from the world over were his sole indulgences.
Upon his death in 1986 the once critical press lauded Moore's achievements. The Daily Telegraph declared him "the most internationally acclaimed of Englishmen" since Winston Churchill (31 August 1986).
ASSESSMENT: His sculptures have been placed in more public places throughout the world than any other sculptor in history. In total he produced 919 sculptures, 5,500 drawings, and 719 graphics/prints.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Moore was influenced by the works of Cezanne*, Gauguin*, Van Gogh*.
He knew Picasso*, Giacometti*, Arp* W.H. Auden*, Spender* and Salvador Dali*.
He was encouraged in his artistic vision by Rothenstein*, Principal of the Royal Academy of Art.
He was a friend of Miro*.
ONELINER: Henry Moore, major 20th century sculptor
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Gohlke, L.F. for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, <>
Henry Moore Foundation,
James, P. (1992).Henry Moore on Sculpture. New York: Da Capo Press.
Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Gropius House,
Wilkinson, A. (2002).Henry Moore: Writings and Conversations. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wilkinson, A. G.: 'Moore, Henry Spencer',The Grove Dictionary of Art Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed 10 November 2002), < >