The Life of Henry Moore

Details the life and works of the great and often controversial sculptor, Henry Moore

How do we reconcile Moore, the creator of universal icons, with Moore, the down-to-earth Yorkshire rustic who summed up his WW I experience as a soldier in these superficial words: "For me the war passed in a romantic haze of hoping to be a hero"? In tracing the sculptor's evolution from protected, mother-bound child to hewer of archetypal forms who learned from surrealism even as he was forging his own abstract style, Berthoud never fully explains the incongruity. Written with Moore's approval and cooperation before his death in 1985, this first full biography offers a balanced, engrossing appraisal of the sculptor's work, even though it sometimes verges on becoming a career recitation. Praising Moore's sculpture became a form of evangelism for the cause of modern art and for postwar Britain. Berthoud (Graham Sutherland) cuts through the hype to explain how Moore became receiver and transmitter of signals from suffering humanity, in an art at once tribal and individual.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

To separate the man from the myth and to retain the integrity of both is the major role of Moore's biographer. Berthoud, who knew Moore for over 30 years, portrays him as both straightforward country man and preeminent sculptor. He uses archives and interviews to trace the artist from Yorkshire origins through World War I experiences to the achievements of the post-World War II years. His book views Moore's art as personal inspiration reflecting the troubled years of the century, although the later work, while often innovative, was divorced from the art of the 1960s and 70s. As the first authorized full biography this is an important contribution, one that generally maintains the balance between admiration and critical judgment. (Illustrations not seen.) Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Mus. Lib., New York
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.