Moore, Henry

HENRY MOORE BIOGRAPHY:

Castleford, 1898 - Much Hadham, 1986 (United Kingdom)

He is one of the most important artists of the 20th century and a renovator of sculpture.

Henry Moore received his artistic training at the Leeds School of Art and the Royal College of Art between 1919 and 1923.

His early works are defined by archaism, and in them he already manifests some of his most attractive themes, such as the stretched figure or the mother with child. Around 1935, Moore was attracted to surrealism, taking the human figure to forms linked to nature. He also became interested in abstraction, and the works of this decade show influences of both styles.

His main contribution is found in the cavities that he gradually excavates in his works, cavities that will occupy an increasingly important space. Precisely, his mature stage will be characterized by the complementarity between form and space. His works have a monumental scale, depending on their location, generally outdoors.

One of Henry Moore's main concerns is the problem of form, together with a desire for expressiveness. He carried out a sculpture based on the study of monumental art of the past (pre-Columbian, Egyptian), as well as the masterful Michelangelo, giving the utmost importance to the type of material and the technical procedure used.

In some of his works after 1930, Moore came closer to pure abstraction, finding among his most characteristic themes those derived from nature, such as biomorphic objects and reclining human figures that were repeated as a constant. His sculptural forms represented a true artistic renovation, which was also supported by the work of artists such as Pevsner, Arp, Gabo, Juli Gonzalez and Brancusi.

In 1948 he received the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale.

Works in Museums and Collections:

Guggenheim Museum
Henry Moore Foundation
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
North Carolina Museum of Art
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Art Gallery of Ontario
Ball State Museum of Art, Indiana
Didrichsen Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Goteborg Museum of Art, Sweden
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
Leeds City Art Gallery
Middelheim Open-Air Museum for Sculpture, Antwerp, Belgium
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Quebec
National Museums Liverpool
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Madrid, Spain
San Diego Museum of Art
Tate Gallery, London
Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Iran
The Israel Museum