Synopsis
This book presents the major sculptures of Henry Moore over sixty years of his highly productive life as an artist. The works chosen range from intimate figures less than 20 centimetres high to monumental pieces six metres long, from those hand-carved in stone or wood to those modeled and then cast in bronze and lead. They thus represent the whole spectrum of the work of this great sculptor, tracing his development of ideas - most notably through the themes of the reclining figure and the mother and child.
David Mitchinson, Curator of the Henry Moore Foundation, describes Moore's early life, the influences upon him and the emergence of his distinctive style. The story is continued by Julian Stallabrass, who explains Moore's increasing popularity after the Second World War. Despite public controversy over some of the more disquieting pieces, Moore's work had become acceptable to a wide audience by the mid-1950s, and by the end of the decade his standing as a foremost figure in world art was beyond doubt.
Throughout his life Moore photographed his own work, as well as the natural objects found near his home which provided inspiration for many of his works. Most of the photographs in this book were taken by the artist.
Reviews
Affording a rounded view of the English sculptor's output and career, this concise, handsomely illustrated survey joins 203 plates (182 in color) with two introductory essays by staff members of the Henry Moore Foundation. Mitchinson briefly reviews the artist's experimentation during the 1930s, when he created delicate stringed figures carved in a variety of woods and "transformation drawings" that turned shells, twigs and pebbles into realizable sculptural forms. Stallabrass astutely sifts various critical readings of Moore's work, which has been seen as tragic, humanistic, apocalyptic, inhuman and an embodiment of the Freudian psyche. Beneath the sculpture's surface familiarity he finds "a set of repressed themes" centering on masculine aggression, the creative act and the inhuman mechanization of the self. The illustrations range from a graceful, classic Head of the Virgin (1922) to miniatures of the 1930s, the delightful Rocking Chair series, heroic torsos and mother-and-child pairs.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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