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About PeopleHenry Moore

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Enduring Understanding

Students will understand thatartworks do encapsulate the themes of identity and relationships in a variety of ways

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Essential QuestionsOverarching Questions1. What is an identity?2. How can relationships within a family or

society be shaped?3. How artists form identity or relationships

with their art?Topical Questions1. How does abstraction enhance the

theme of identity and relationships?

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Essential Questions

Overarching QuestionsWhat is an identity ?

How do artists form identityor relationships with their art?

Topical QuestionsHow can art be an extension

of nature?

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5W1H

Nature

Henry Moore

When1898 - 1986

What

WhereUK

HowDrawing

Sculpture*

WhyHis Background

His Influence

WhichModern Sculpture

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Who Moore was born on the 30 July 1898 in

Castleford, Yorkshire. He started learning pottery with Alice

Gostick, his art teacher on 1911. He became a student teacher on 1915. He taught in Castleford from 1916. Moore was recruited in 1917 by the army. He returned to Castleford in 1919 and

continued his pottery lessons with Gostick. In the same year, he enrolled into Leeds School of Art.

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Who Moore met his lifetime friend Barbara Hepworth in

1921 at Leeds. He also won a scholarship to Royal College of Arts (RCA) in London.

He visited Paris in 1922 to see the work of Cézanne. He started teaching at RCA in 1924. He quitted RCA in 1931due to an article which caused

a public scandal. Soon after, he was employed by Chelsea College of Art to set up the sculpture department.

His only child Mary Moore was born in 1946. In 1965, he bought a house near the Carrara marble

quarries of Italy. He died at the age of 88 in the year 1986.

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When (1898- 1986) < 1898: The opening of British Museum in 1759.1914: World War I.

1903-75:Barbara Hepworth. Moore and Hepworth share many similarities in their sculptures.

1920s: The emergence of Surrealism.

1939: World War 1I.

1940: The London Blitz. German air force bombed London for 12 hours on 7 Sept. Such intense air-raid continued for several months.

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Where England The Russian artists, Naum Gabo (1890 – 1977)

and Antoine Pevsner (1886 – 1962) issued a “constructivist manifesto” that calls for distancing from traditional sculpture methods such as stone carving and exploring space with new forms and materials. They were living at England.

The 1930s was fraught with economic depression and political tension.

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WhichModern Sculpture Abstraction

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WhatSubject Matter- Figurative Sculptures of the human body, head and

shoulders are common in the European artistic tradition and non-European art.

His individual figures- the female forms include reclining females and seated women.

They are either nude or draped. He saw a connection between the draperies to landscape, comparing them to the folds of the hills and the valleys or “the crinkled skin of the earth”.

His figures in groups are mother and child together or family groups with the presence of the father.

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WhatTheme Nature Inspired Figures- “convey the human

figure as a form of landscape” (Fath, 1996). Landscape as a creative source (be it within

the sculpture itself or the site). The human landscape- linking landscape

with the human body. Thus, it is a metaphor for landscape. An

idea that was very new at that time. Some of his post-war (WWII) works

resemble “helmeted heads” (Wallis, 2002).

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WhatTheme The massive carnage of WWII has made him

respond to the conflict with helmet heads that are both “menacing and protective” (Wallis, 2002).

Internal/External Forms, composed of two shapes, one enclosing the other. They look like giant versions of his helmet heads.

These figures resembled the hollow trees bordering Moore’s estate at Hertfordshire.

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Elements of Cubism

Mother and Child, 1922Green gneiss stone, ? x ? x 28

cm

Head and Shoulders , 1927

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Influenced from Primitive Art

Mask, 1928Green gneiss stone, 21.2 x 19 x

8.7 cmTate Gallery, UK

Mask, 1929Cast concrete, 20 x 18 x 13 cm

Tate Gallery, UK

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Constructivist Approach

Bird Basket, 1939Lignum vitae and string, 42 cm

long

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Reclining Figures

Reclining Woman, 1927Cast concrete, x x cm

The Moore Danowski Trust

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West Wind, 1928-9Portland stone, 244 cm long

London Transport HQ, St James Park Underground Station

This is his first commissioned work

Reclining Figures

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Reclining Figures

Reclining Figure, 1929Brown Horton stone, 85 cm

long

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Reclining Figures

Recumbent Figure, 1938Green Horton stone, 88.9 x 132.7 x 73.7

cmTate Gallery, UK

This is one of Moore’s first figure that

undulates like a landscape.

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Reclining Figures

Reclining Figure, 1951Plaster and string, 105.4 x 227.3 x 89.2 cm

Tate Gallery, UK

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Reclining Figures

Draped Reclining Figure, 1957-8Bronze, 134.6 x 208.3 x 91.4 cm

The Henry Moore Foundation

This is one of Moore’s first figure that

undulates like a landscape.

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Reclining Figures

Reclining Figure: Festival, 1951

Stoneware 45 x 22 x 15 cm

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Seated Figures

Seated Woman: Thin Neck, 1961

Bronze 170.2 x 81.3 x 103.5 cm

Tate Gallery, UK

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Mother and Child

Mother and Child , 1953Bronze, 53 x 27 x 34.5cm

Tate Gallery, UK

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Mother and Child , 1967Marble, 130.8 cm long

Henry Moore Foundation

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Family Groups

Family Group, 1944Terracotta, 15 x 12.6 x 7.6

cmTate London, UK

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Family Groups

Family Group, 1949Bronze, 154 x 118 x 70

cm Tate London, UK

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Relationship

Over Mother’s Head, 1990Bronze, 103 x 40 x 38 cm

Over Mother’s Head, 1990Bronze, 103 x 40 x 38 cm

Front View

Back View

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Atom Piece, 1965Bronze, ? x ? x 122 cm high

Didrichsen Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland

This sculpture is inspired by the skull of an elephant which Moore collected.

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His Works @ the Countryside

King and Queen, 1952-3Bronze, 164 x 138 x 84.5 cm

Keswick Estate, Glenkiln, Dumfresshire, Scotland

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His Massive Monuments

Sheep Piece, 1971-2Bronze, 550 cm high

The Henry Moore Foundation

Moore chose the countryside as the location for his sculptures because he wanted to use the open sky as dramatic backgrounds.

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Surrealistic Hint

Two Seated Women, 1934Charcoal, watercolour, pen and ink, crayon on

cream medium-weight wove paper, 37 x 55 cm

The Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green

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Time-Life Screen, 1952-3Portland stone, ? x 808 cm long

Pearl Assurance, Time-Life Building, London

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War Related Drawings

September 3rd, 1939

Pencil, wax crayon, coloured crayons and Indian ink, 30.6 x 39.8 cm

The Henry Moore Foundation

This drawing is a response to the news on the declaration of

WWII. Moore and his wife was on a swimming trip to Dover. It shows 8 women in the sea surrounded by Dover’s steep Shakespeare cliff. It points to the beginning of a conflict and a fear of a repeat of the European bloodbath.

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War Related Drawings

Tube Shelter Perspective, 1941Pencil, ink, wax and

watercolour, on paper, 75 x 69.5 cm

Tate Gallery, UK

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Pink and Green Sleepers, 1941

Oil on canvas, 198 x 147.5 cmMoore encountered men, women and children using

the platforms of the Underground stations as makeshift shelters from the bombing. The result-these images known as the shelter drawings

War Related Drawings

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War Related Drawings

Shelter Scene: Bunks and Sleepers, 1941

Watercolour, gouache on paper, 75 x 69 cm

Tate Gallery, UK

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War Related Drawings

Shelterers in the Tube, 1941Pencil, pen and ink, watercolour and crayon on paper, 65 x

81.7 cmTate Gallery, UK

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Fun Fact!

Moore revisited the London Underground as an actor in a documentary entitled

Out of Chaos on war artists.

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Study after Cézanne’s Bathers, 1980

Carbon line, wax crayon, watercolour, chalk, chinagraph on heavyweight woven paper, 25 x 13.7

cm

The Henry Moore Foundation

His After

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His Nudes

Seated Nude with Mirror, 1924

Pencil, charcoal, watercolour wash, pen, brush and ink on

paper, 63 x 48cm

Tate Gallery, UK

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WhyHis Background Moore’s mother suffered from rheumatism and would ask

Moore to massage her back. This allows him (as he said) to become more sensitive to the curves of the back.

He also enjoyed miles and miles of countryside at Castleford when he was young, exploring the woodland and playing by the canal.

His interest in sculpture was ignited in Sunday school when he first chanced upon the works of Michelangelo. He was carving from bits of wood and stone.

Moore had a natural talent for art since young. He won a scholarship to secondary school.

He was conscripted to the army at 19. In his letters to his teacher Alice Gostick, he wrote of the dreadful condition- the noise, insufficient sleep. This was when he made drawings of “people picking lice from their clothes” (O’Reilly, 2003).

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WhyHis Background Moore’s art teacher Alice Gostick was a source of

inspiration to him after the war, who encouraged him to pursue art as a career.

He admitted to Leeds School of Art with a grant scouted by her. It was at Leeds when he decided to be a sculptor.

The school set up a sculpture department which was previously unavailable and Babara Hepworth (another famous sculptor) joined Moore in this department.

He won a scolarship to Royal College of Art in 1921, where he rebelled against the academy. The training in RCA was based on classical and Renaissance art whereby sculptors used pointing machine (a measuring tool to copy plaster, clay or wax sculpture models into wood or stone) to copy classical sculpture.

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WhyHis Background The emergence of the Surrealists had influenced

Moore in some minute ways. For example, he agreed with their imagination and

inventiveness but never allowing the subconscious to take over control in the creation.

He exhibited his abstract reclining figures with the Surrealists in the Surrealist Exhibition at the new Burlington Galleries in 1936. Despite their common ideas, Moore can never be identified as a Surrealist.

Another of his work that reminds one of Surrealistic tendencies is the drawing of Two Seated Women, 1934.

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WhyHis Background At the same time, he was experimenting with

abstraction. His work became “increasingly simplified and

removed from reality” (O’Reilly, 2003). He claimed that it was more true to nature.

Moore was directly affected by the Blitz. His home was bombed and he and his wife were thus forced out of London and into the open countryside.

This move was his first experience with the countryside and became a turning point for Moore.

The birth of his daughter has inspired many family groups sculptures.

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WhyHis Influence- Landscape He was inspired by the landscape in Yorkshire. He was exploring the countryside of Castleford as a child

and acknowledged that as essential to artistic development- helping him to understand nature and nurturing his imagination.

It is a land of great contrast- the countryside versus the local mining area.

The countryside yields undulating hills and large open skies while ugly slag (stony material compose of waste matter and dross) heaps mar the landscape.

Moore would always tap on the rocky crags and mountains of coal and smooth pebbles of Castleford streets for his sculptures.

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WhyHis Influence- Primitive Art Primitive art describes art from various different

cultures outside European and Oriental art. They often look abstract, for example, dots and slits

for eyes with “chunky tubular limbs” (O’Reilly, 2003). Moore discovered the book Vision and Design by

Roger Fry. Fry’s essays on ancient art struck a chord in Moore.

He became fascinated with primitive art and was particularly drawn to Latin American sculptures.

When he was attending RCA, he spent most of his free time gallivanting the London museums with their treasures of primitive sculptures. From Egypt, Pacific Islands, Africa and Mexico.

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WhyHis Influence- Primitive Art

Chacmool, 12th C by Mexico

Limestone, 45.7 x 95 x 12.1cm

Chacmool is a Mexican rain spirit

Reclining Figure, 1929Brown Horton stone, 85 cm

long

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WhyHis Influence- Jacob Epstein (1880-

1959) He was an American-born sculptor who

worked in UK. He pioneered the modern sculpture. He often produced controversial works

that challenged the taboos concerning what public artworks should depict.

His technique- direct carving. He was also a painter.

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Why- His Influence

Night, 1928=29by Jacob Epstein

London Transport HQ

Torso, in Metal form “The Rock Drill, 1913-14

by Jacob EpsteinBronze, 70.5 x 58.4 x 44.5cm

Tate Gallery, UK

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HowHis Materials Stone Wood Bronze Marble

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How He transforms the way people see art by creating

huge sculptures and placing them in the open- egs: parks, squares and important buildings. (Traditionally, public sculptures are statues of generals or works of commemoration).

He carved directly into stone or wood with hammer and chisel.

Direct carving (20th C term) corresponds with the statement of that time “truth to material” because it is risky as one slip of the chisel is a grave irreversible mistake. The process is thought of as “working with nature” and thus being true to the material.

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How Sculptors like Moore believed that the

sculpture is already in the stone and waiting to be uncovered by the artist’s hands.

“I liked the fact that you begin with the block and have to find the sculpture inside. You have

to overcome the resistance of the material by sheer determination and hard work.”

- Henry Moore - He believes the material should dominate for

example the quality of wood allows the sculpture to be as thin as a tree, which a stone can’t perform.

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How Moore’s stone figures are usually reclining.

For sculptors working with stone, it is a practical decision on their part to recline their figures because a stone standing sculpture can snap at its ankles or neck.

He reduces his objects to the simplest forms or build them from basic shapes.

He also excavates holes from his sculptures.- something unusual at that point of time.

Moore was beginning to explore the material bronze after the war. The reason is that bronze is more malleable than stone and allows him to cast upright figures without the sculptures splitting into two.

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How He used lost-wax casting (refer to video in MI

Link). He reverted back to the traditional method of creating maquettes

He did the casting himself with his two asistants.

Then, he cast them in professional foundries. Next, he became interested in marble. As he got older, his works got larger and

larger. They became massive monuments cast in bronze.

Size matters for Moore, especially his outdoor works. He wants his sculptures to complement nature and not become overwhelmed by it.

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Fun Quiz

Where is the Henry Moore sculpture in Singapore?

What is it called?And how does it look like?

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Reference O’Reilly, S (2003). Artists in Their

World: Henry Moore. Franklin Watts: Australia.

Wallis, J. (2002) Creative Lives: Henry Moore. Harcourt Education: UK.

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