Henry Moore

:This article is about the sculptor. For the governor of New York, see Henry Moore (governor).

Biography

Early life

Moore was born in Castleford, West Yorkshire, England, the seventh of eight children to Raymond Spencer Moore and Mary Baker. His father was a mining engineer who rose to be under-manager of the Wheldale colliery in Castleford. He was an autodidact with an interest in music and literature, and he saw formal education as the route to advancement for his children.

Related Topics:
Castleford - West Yorkshire - England

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Moore decided to become a sculptor when he was only eleven and was encouraged by his art teacher to begin modelling in clay and carving in wood whilst at secondary school. Despite early promise, his parents were against a career as a sculptor, seeing it as manual labour.

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In 1917, on turning 18, Moore was drafted to fight in World War I. The youngest man in his regiment, the Civil Service Rifles, he saw action in the Battle of Cambrai but was injured in a gas attack. He made a speedy recovery, however, and saw out the remainder of the war as a physical training instructor. In stark contrast to many of his contemporaries, Moore's war-time experience was largely untroubled; he recalled the time saying for me the war passed in a romantic haze of trying to be a hero.

Related Topics:
1917 - World War I - Battle of Cambrai

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After the war, Moore received an ex-serviceman's grant to continue his education and became the first student of sculpture at Leeds School of Art in 1919 — the school had to set up a sculpture studio especially for him.

Related Topics:
Leeds School of Art - 1919

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College education

Whilst at Leeds, Moore met fellow art student Barbara Hepworth, beginning a friendship which would last for many years. Moore was also fortunate to be introduced to African tribal sculpture, by Sir Michael Sadler, the Vice Chancellor at the Leeds School.

Related Topics:
Barbara Hepworth - Michael Sadler

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In 1921 Moore won a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London, where Hepworth had gone the year before. Whilst in London, Moore extended his knowledge of primitive art and sculpture, studying the ethnographic collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum.

Related Topics:
1921 - Royal College of Art - London - Victoria and Albert Museum - British Museum

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Both Moore and Hepworth's earliest sculptures followed standard teaching in romantic Victorian style; subjects were natural forms, landscapes and figurative modelling of animals. Moore increasingly felt uncomfortable with these classically derived ideas. With his knowledge of primitivism and the influence of sculptors such as Brancusi, Epstein and Dobson he started to develop a style of direct carving in which imperfections in the material and tool marks are incorporated into the finished sculpture. In doing so he had to fight against his academic tutors who did not appreciate the modern approach. In one exercise set by Derwent Wood, the professor of Sculpture at the RCA, Moore was supposed to reproduce a marble relief of Rosselli's The Virgin and Child, by first modelling the relief in plaster then reproducing it in marble using the mechanical technique of 'pointing'. Instead Moore carved the relief directly, even marking the surface to simulate the surface prick marks which would have been left by the pointing machine. http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk/site/thesite/pages/workchronology.html

Related Topics:
Brancusi - Epstein - Dobson - Direct carving - Derwent Wood - Rosselli - Pointing

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Nevertheless, in 1924, Moore won a six month travelling scholarship which he spent in Northern Italy studying the great works of Michelangelo, Giotto and several other Old Masters. Since Moore had already started to break away from the classical tradition, it is not clear that he drew much influence from this trip, though in later life he would often claim Michelangelo as an influence.

Related Topics:
1924 - Michelangelo - Giotto

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Life in Hampstead

On returning to London, Moore began a seven year teaching post at the RCA. He was only required to teach two days a week which gave him plenty of time to spend on his own work. In July 1929 he married Irina Radetsky, a painting student at the RCA — Irina was born in Kiev on 26 March 1907 to Russian-Polish parents. Her father disappeared in the Russian 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 step-father's relatives in Buckinghamshire. With such a troubled childhood, it is not surprising that Irina had a reputation of being quiet and a little withdrawn. But she found security in her marriage to Moore and was soon posing for him.

Related Topics:
1929 - 26 March - 1907 - Russian Revolution - Buckinghamshire

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Shortly after getting married the pair moved to a studio in Hampstead, joining a small colony of avant garde artists who were starting to take root there. Shortly afterwards, Hepworth and her partner Ben Nicholson moved into a studio around the corner from Moore, whilst Naum Gabo and the art critic Herbert Read also lived in the area. This led to a rapid cross-fertilisation of ideas which Read would publicise, helping to raise Moore's public profile.

Related Topics:
Hampstead - Ben Nicholson - Naum Gabo - Herbert Read

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In the early 1930s, Moore took up a post as the Head of the Department of Sculpture at the Chelsea School of Art. Artistically, Moore, Hepworth and other members of the 7 and 5 Society would develop steadily more abstract work, partly influenced by their frequent trips to Paris and contact with leading French artists, notably Picasso, Braque, Arp and Giacometti. Moore flirted with Surrealism, joining Paul Nash's Unit One Group in 1933. Both Moore and Paul Nash were on the organising committee of the London International Surrealist Exhibition which took place in 1936. At this time Moore gradually transitioned from direct carving to casting in bronze, modelling preliminary maquettes in clay or plaster.

Related Topics:
1930s - Chelsea School of Art - 7 and 5 Society - Paris - Picasso - Braque - Arp - Giacometti - Surrealism - Paul Nash - Unit One Group - 1933 - 1936 - Maquette

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War artist

This inventive and productive period was brought to an end by the outbreak of the Second World War. The Chelsea School of Art evacuated to Northampton and Moore resigned his teaching post. During the war, Moore was commissioned as a war artist, notably producing powerful drawings of Londoners sleeping in the London Underground whilst sheltering from the blitz http://www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue2/moore.htm. These drawings helped to boost Moore's international reputation, particularly in America.

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After their Hampstead home was hit by bomb shrapnel, he and Irina moved out of London to live in a farmhouse called Hoglands in the hamlet of Perry Green near Much Hadham, Hertfordshire. This was to become Moore's final home and workshop. Despite acquiring significant wealth later in life, Moore never felt the need to move to a larger home and apart from adding a number of outbuildings and workshops the house changed little.

Related Topics:
Much Hadham - Hertfordshire

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International recognition

After the war and following several earlier miscarriages, Irina gave birth to their daughter, Mary on 7 March 1946. The child was named after Moore's mother, who had died a couple of 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 figures also remained popular. In the same year, Moore made his first visit to America when a retrospective exhibition of his work opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1948 he won the International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale.

Related Topics:
7 March - 1946 - Museum of Modern Art - 1948 - Venice Biennale

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Towards the end of the war, Moore had been approached by Henry Morris who was in the process of trying to reform education with the concept of the village college. Morris had engaged Walter Gropius as the architect for his second village college at Impington near Cambridge and he wanted Moore to design a major public sculpture for the site. Unfortunately the County Council couldn't 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 hadn't progressed beyond the maquette stage. Fortunately Moore was able to reuse the design in 1950 for a similar commission outside a secondary school for the new town of Stevenage. This time, the project was completed and Family Group became Moore's first large scale public bronze.

Related Topics:
Henry Morris - Village college - Walter Gropius - Impington - Cambridge - 1950 - Stevenage

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In the 1950s Moore began to receive increasingly significant commissions, including one for the UNESCO building in Paris 1957. With many more public works of art, the scale of Moore's sculptures grew significantly and he started to employ a number of assistants to work with him at Much Hadham, including Anthony Caro.

Related Topics:
1950s - UNESCO - 1957 - Anthony Caro

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Legacy

The last three decades of Moore's life continued in a similar vein, with several major retrospectives around the world, notably a very prominent exhibition in the summer of 1972 in the grounds of the Forte di Belvedere overlooking Florence. By the end of the 1970s there were some 40 exhibitions a year featuring his work.

Related Topics:
1972 - Florence - 1970s

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The number of commissions continued to increase; he completed Knife Edge Two Piece in 1962 for a site next to the Houses of Parliament in London. Moore commented;

Related Topics:
1962 - Houses of Parliament

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:When I was offered the site near the House of Lords... I liked the place so much that I didn't bother to go and see an alternative site in Hyde 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.

Related Topics:
House of Lords - Hyde Park

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As his personal wealth grew dramatically, 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 from death duties. By 1977 he was paying about a million pounds a year, in tax. To mitigate this tax burden he established the Henry Moore Foundation as a registered charity with Irina and Mary as trustees. The Foundation was established to promote the public appreciation of art and to preserve Moore's sculptures. It now runs Hoglands as a gallery and museum of Moore's workshops.

Related Topics:
1972 - Death duties - 1977

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Although Moore had turned down a knighthood in 1951 he was later awarded the Companion of Honour in 1955 and the Order of Merit in 1963.

Related Topics:
Knighthood - 1951 - Companion of Honour - 1955 - Order of Merit - 1963

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Henry Moore died on 31 August, 1986, at the age of 88, in his home in Hertfordshire. His body is interred in the Artist's Corner at St Paul's Cathedral.

Related Topics:
31 August - 1986 - St Paul's Cathedral

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