Henry Moore Comes Home

An exhibition of selected etchings and lithographs from the British Council Collection.

English sculptor Henry Moore (1898 – 1986) is one of the most prominent artists of the 20th century. Best known all over the world for his monumental sculpture, he was also a prolific printmaker.

Henry Moore Comes Home presents selected prints from the British Council Collection, and reveals the enduring influence abroad of one of the UK’s best-loved artists.

The selection explores some of the main themes that interested the artist throughout his life, which can also be found in his drawings and sculpture.

Dates and location

1 December 2015 – 19 February 2016
British Council, 10 Spring Gardens, London
Visitor information

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Exhibition
themes

Standing Figure: Storm Sky, 1978

Drawing was the basis of Moore’s work and was as important to him as carving or modelling in three dimensions.

Most of Moore’s graphic works are based on human forms mixed with natural objects and with landscape.

Moore never had to look for subject matter, it was all around him: the trees in his garden, his own hands, little objects that he collected in his studios - bones, shells, flints, pieces of roots, pieces of bark, natural objects. - David Mitchinson, exhibition's curator

Image: Two Forms, 1967

Reclining figure

The reclining figure was probably Moore’s most important theme. It existed in his work from the 1920s until he died in 1986, manifesting itself in bronzes, carvings, graphics and textile designs.

Four Reclining Figures, 1973

Moore’s figurative works on paper are broad in form and restful in pose, as well as monumental and powerful in appearance.

Mother and Child

The ‘Mother and child’ idea is one of my two or three obsessions, one of my inexhaustible subjects . . . with so many . . . possibilities in it – a small form in relation to a big form protecting the small one, and so on. - Henry Moore

Image: Mother and Child Studies and Reclining Figure, 1977

Organic form

The inspiration from natural and organic forms echoes throughout Moore’s body of work.

He built up a large assortment of found objects from which he derived much inspiration for works on paper as well as for sculpture.

Trees III: Knuckled Trunk, 1979

Trees

Moore produced dozens of drawings of trees throughout the latter 1970s and early 1980s. In 1979 he drew the plates for six etchings and aquatints based on trees in the gardens of his English and Italian homes.

The immobility of a tree, rooted in the ground, has the kind of stability that I like in sculpture.

'Henry Moore Drawings 1969-79', Wildenstein, New York 1979, p.18

Hands

Moore made a number of drawings and prints both of his own hands and of those of his friend the crystallographer Dorothy Hodgkin, a Nobel chemistry prize winner who suffered from crippling arthritis.

After the head and face, hands are the most expressive part of the human body. Hands can convey so much – they can beg or refuse, take or give, be open or clenched, show content or anxiety. - from 'The Artist’s Hand', Raymond Spencer Company Ltd, Much Hadham, 1980.

Image: Hands I, 1973

I really began to want to do graphic work, or prints, when I discovered that one could change a print without losing what you’d got already.

Henry Moore, from an interview with Nigel Rees, 'Kaleidoscope', BBC, 22 May 1975

Printmaking

Henry Moore drawing on a copper etching plate with an old dental tool in his studio at Perry Green, 1970.

Most people know Henry Moore for his big sculptures installed across the world in public spaces, but Moore also liked to work on a small scale.

He made prints that the average member of the public could buy to put on their living room wall, something that was not expensive.

Moore had a drawing studio very close to his house, and he would go there most working days to work in sketchbooks or on his prints.

Henry Moore examining Draped Reclining Figure 1974 Lithograph (CGM 332), Gildmore Graphic studio.

The printmaking process

Printmaking is a detailed and considered process that enables multiple images to be made from a master plate.

Henry Moore working on Elephant Skull etchings, with the elephant skull in foreground and Elephant Skull Plate XXVII (CGM 140) pegged to the board in the background, 1971. Etching Studio, Perry Green. Image: Errol Jackson.

Lithography
Lithographs are traditionally made using a slab of limestone that is drawn onto with oily crayons and then inked.

The drawn areas accept the ink, forming the image, and the stone is pressed onto paper to make a print.

Etching
An image is created by drawing through a layer of thin layer of waxy substance onto a metal plate, which is then immersed in acid for the exposed metal to etch.

The grooves in the metal are then filled with ink that is transferred onto paper.

Etching originated in the 15th century workshops of goldsmiths and metalworkers who were using their tools to engrave designs into armour.

International
influence

Henry Moore - the Printmaker at Montenegrin Art Gallery 'Miodrag Dado Djuric', Cetinje, Montenegro. Image: Dalibor Sevaljevic

The British Council has been making exhibitions of Henry Moore's graphic work and sculpture available to audiences worldwide for over 50 years.

All these large one-man shows of my work could not have taken place without the essential help of the British Council – in consequence, and fortunately for me, my work is well known outside England.

Henry Moore, letter to Margaret Thatcher, 10 November 1979

The latest exhibition of Moore’s work toured to seven countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia between 2013 and 2015 where it revealed personal stories and international artistic connections spanning more than seven decades.

Images: British Council Kazakhstan; Ivan Blazhev.

Imprisoned for ‘modernist tendencies’.

Maks Velo. Image: courtesy of the artist

One personal story from the exhibition came from Albanian artist Maks Velo who was given a book containing pictures of Henry Moore’s work in 1972.

This was at a time in communist Albania where Socialist Realism was the only accepted art form. Owning a book showing western 'decadent' art brought considerable risks and he was imprisoned for eight years after being accused of 'modernist tendencies'.

Henry Moore – the Printmaker in Cetinje, Montenegro.
Image: Dalibor Sevaljevic

Henry Moore – the Printmaker was the first major international exhibition in a new art gallery in Cetinje, Montenegro. It was visited by one in four residents of the city and the show was described as the ‘cultural event of the year’ by local press in 2013.

This exhibition was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for many.

Ana Ivanovic, curator, National Museum of Montenegro

Artistic influences

Henry Moore – the Printmaker in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Image: British Council Uzbekistan

The exhibition revealed Moore’s influence on artists in Uzbekistan, Macedonia and Kosovo who were inspired by his ideas in 1960s – 1970s. These artists adopted more liberal and abstract forms in their work and drove the evolution of local modern sculpture.