Background
Henry Moore was born July 30, 1898, in Castleford, Yorkshire. He was born as the seventh of eight children to Raymond Spencer Moore and Mary Baker.
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Henry Moore was born July 30, 1898, in Castleford, Yorkshire. He was born as the seventh of eight children to Raymond Spencer Moore and Mary Baker.
Henry Moore attended infant and elementary schools in Castleford, where he began modelling in clay and carving in wood. He professed to have decided to become a sculptor when he was eleven after hearing of Michelangelo's achievements at a Sunday School reading. He was accepted at Castleford Grammar School on his second attempt, where his headmaster soon noticed his talent and interest in medieval sculpture. His art teacher broadened his knowledge of art and, with her encouragement, he determined to make art his career; first by sitting for examinations for a scholarship to the local art college. But Moore's parents had been against him training as a sculptor, a vocation they considered manual labour with few career prospects. After a brief introduction as a student teacher, Moore became a teacher at the school he had attended. Upon turning eighteen, Moore volunteered for army service.
He was the youngest man in the Prince of Wales' Own Civil Service Rifles regiment and was injured in 1917 in a gas attack, on 30 November at Bourlon Wood. After the Great War Moore received an ex-serviceman's grant to continue his education and in 1919 he became a student at the Leeds School of Art, which set up a sculpture studio especially for him. In 1921 Moore won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London. He spent considerable time at the British Museum, where he admired the Sumerian, Egyptian, and pre-Columbian artifacts. Moore's trips to Paris, beginning in 1923, enabled him to become familiar with the work of Constantin Brancusi. Later Moore went to Italy, where he was particularly drawn to the volumetric painting of Giotto and Masaccio.
In the early phase of Henry Moore's sculpture, about 1922 to 1930, two themes emerged which occupied him for the rest of his career: one, the mother and child, and the other, the reclining figure. In such works as Mother and Child (1924-1925, Manchester) and Reclining Figure (1929, Leeds) the strong pre-Columbian treatment is overwhelming. Similarly, the numerous masks he executed, such as the concrete Mask (1929, collection of Philip Hendy), rely on Aztec and Tolmec prototypes. These early works show his mastery of carving techniques and his use of varied materials such as concrete, alabaster, Hornton stone, verde di Prado, and ebony.
Moore became less dependent on non-Western sources in the early 1930s, and the full expression of his imagery developed during the next eight years. In part this was due to his interest in cubism and its variants at this time. He was elected to the Seven and Five Society, a group of English avant-garde artists who were also aware of the possibilities of cubism. Between 1930 and 1933 Moore reworked the reclining figure theme, placing the emphasis on a smooth, flowing transition from part to part, as in Reclining Woman (1930, Ottawa); and he began to develop a nonfigurative biomorphic vocabulary similar to that of Brancusi and Jean Arp, for example, the African wonderstone Composition (1932, collection of Mrs. Irina Moore). Moore's tendency toward abstraction became more pronounced in the mid-1930s, and this explains in part why he joined the constructionist-oriented Unit One group.
Two works reflect Moore's refinement of form and composition at this time: the standing ironstone Two Forms (1934, collection of R. H. M. Ody), with carefully incised lines carved lightly over the surface, and the wood Two Forms (1934, New York). Both seemingly allude to the mother and child theme but remain open, even polyvalent, in their meaning.
By the mid-1930s Moore returned to the reclining figure, now treated more abstractly, such as Reclining Figure Fourpieces (1934, collection of Mrs. Martha Jackson). The elm-wood Reclining Figure (1935-1936, Buffalo) and its counterpart (1936, Wakefield City) reveal a new sensitivity to, even exploitation of, the material. The shapes seem to emerge from the natural configurations of the wood and its inherent structure. Toward the end of the 1930s the reclining figure was again transformed, gradually opened up, and finally eviscerated, as in the lead Reclining Figure (1938, New York) and Recumbent Figure (1938, London). Moore developed two other motifs at the same time: the interior-exterior image found in The Helmet (1939-1940, collection of Roland Penrose) and the abstract pieces with stretched string or wire, a technique borrowed from mathematical models. Of this series the most successful are the Bird Basket (1939, collection of Mrs. Irina Moore) and The Bride (1940, New York), both playing off mass against volume.
At the outbreak of World War II Moore as Official War Artist entered his most realistic phase, seen in the exceptional set of drawings known as the Shelter Drawings. His major sculptural work was the equally realistic Madonna and Child for the church of St. Matthew, Northampton (1943).
After 1946 Moore moved in a variety of directions. He returned to the reclining figure motif, continually altering the image. The Reclining Figure for UNESCO in Paris (1957-1958), while executed in a conventional material, marble, is ingeniously displayed on a tilted platform. The Reclining Figure (1963-1964) for Lincoln Center, New York City, is partially submerged in a reflecting pool, the form now broken into two segments. The solution to the composition of the latter commission seems to have been worked out in a series of two-piece figures begun in 1959 and carried out in a number of variations, for example, Two-piece Reclining Figure No. 4 (1962, Amsterdam). The treatment of the recumbent figure became more abstract and was even broken into three parts, as in Three-piece Reclining Figure No. 2 Bridge Prop (1963, Leeds).
Moore also reworked the mother and child image, now translated into the Family Group (1946, Washington), and restated in several pieces of 1950-1952 known as the Rocking Chair. Similarly, the helmet-head theme and related problems of internal and external relationships also reappeared in the early 1950s, now assuming a more impressive scale and vertical orientation, as in the elm-wood Internal External Forms (1953-1954, Buffalo). In addition to these reappearing motifs, Moore developed a much more extensive set of formal images in the postwar period.
The abstract reliefs commissioned from Moore take several forms. The Time Life Screen (1952-1953) of the Time Life Building, London, only casually refers to the angular treatment of the abstract carvings of the 1930s, while the unusual Wall Relief (1955) for the Bouwcentrum, Rotterdam, literally grows out of the brick wall from which the forms emerge, molded of the same material. The degree of abstraction is carried still further in the large nonfigurative composition known as Relief No. 1 (1959) for the Opera House, West Berlin. Yet the figure in some form is retained in an unusual set of images, such as the King and Queen (1952-1953) placed in an outdoor setting on the grounds of W. J. Keswick, Scotland. Executed in metal, the figures have a skeletal rendering reminiscent of the lead reclining figures. Other figurative concerns are expressed in the full-bodied but fragmented torsos with their archaic references of the Warrior with Shield (1953-1954, Minneapolis) and the related Falling Warrior (1956-1957, collection of Joseph H. Hirschorn). Finally, although less specifically figural yet retaining a human orientation, are the upright motif series, of which the Glenkiln Cross is the most successful.
The late work of Moore was his most powerful, drawing on the theme of interlocking parts, whether based on skeletal structures or stone forms. The scale of his later sculpture increased considerably and, like so much of his larger work, is best viewed out of doors. Most characteristics of this last phase are the Knife Edge in Two Pieces (1962, London), the impressive Locking Piece (1963, Brussels), and the Double Oval (1966, London). Moore died on August 31, 1986 in Much Hadham, England.
Henry Spencer Moore is best known for his abstract bronze sculptures which are located in various prominent public places. He became the most influential and famous sculptor of his generation.
Henry Spencer Moore won the International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1948. He was awarded the Companion of Honour and the Order of Merit in 1955 and 1963 respectively.
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Quotations:
"Sculpture is an art of the open air. Daylight, sunlight, is necessary to it, and for me, its best setting and complement is nature."
"A sculptor is a person who is interested in the shape of things, a poet in words, a musician by sounds."
"I believe that nothing should be taboo - no theory or prejudice should close one's mind to a discovery."
"To know one thing, you must know the opposite."
In 1929 Henry Spencer Moore married Irina Radetsky, a fellow student at the Royal College. They had one daughter, Mary.
Raymond Spencer Moore worked in a colliery and the family lived in poverty. Raymond wanted his children to have a decent education so that they could build better careers for themselves.
Irina Radetsky was born in Kiev in 1907 to Ukrainian–Polish parents. Her father did not return from the Russian Revolution and her mother was evacuated to Paris where she married a British army officer.
