Henry Moore
Born – Castleford, England 1898
Died – Much Hadham, England 1986
Moore trained in Leeds, where he met Barbara Hepworth, and at the Royal College. He taught there between 1925 and 1932 and at Chelsea School of Art through the 1930s. Moore gradually revised his early rejection of traditional, classical sculpture as a result of travelling to Paris and Italy in 1925. He had originally been impressed by the “barbaric” vitality of African wood carvings and pre-Columbian sculpture. Intrinsically, non-Western, constructive qualities infuse his work, which combines geological and human forms. He defined “truth to materials” as a primary aim, seeing the artistic contemplation of realistic beauty as a digression. From 1928 he received public commissions which alternately attracted controversy and admiration. His international reputation was established in the 1940s, by which time, after the bombing of his studio, he had moved to Hertfordshire. Moore’s Shelter drawings, made as an official war artist, offer a unique interpretation of the search for refuge from the Blitz. Drawing was an essential and integral aspect of Moore’s practice and Mother Preparing Child for Bath exemplifies the graphic, generic forms that inform and typify his sculptural work. Arguably, he remains the most important British sculptor of the twentieth century.
Masterpieces:
- Reclining Figure
- Family Group
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.
Books About henry moore
Henry Moore: From the Inside Out; Plasters, Carvings, Drawings
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Henry Moore
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Henry Moore: Sculpting the Twentieth Century
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