Anyway, today we made the trip to the Henry Moore Foundation. The weather forecast wasn't great so we made sure we walked around the grounds as soon as we got there and saved the indoor exhibits for when it started raining!
Moore was renowned for his sculptures of reclining figures and family groups and many of them are on display in the spacious grounds.
The rain started and we moved to the various buildings housing his studios. By a very strange coincidence, the guide employed in the first studio was someone who used to be a neighbour of my sister's so we had a very personalised talk about how Moore's ideas came to life. These huge sculptures were often inspired by the shape of a piece of flint that he came across, that he added another stone to, and then perhaps a chicken bone. The basis of the overall structure was born and made into a maquette and he enlarged on that very basic skeleton of a shape.
There was also an exhibition of his drawings 'The Art of Seeing' showing his work from his 20s right through to his death in 1986 at the age of 88. The drawings he did in the war of shelter drawings were his first real successes and he really captures the spirit of Londoners sheltering in tube stations.
The exhibits which surprised me the most were the tapestries which were made from some of his drawings - my favourite was this one which depicts one of the shelter drawings of women sleeping with their children.
I'm so pleased we finally got to visit, it really shouldn't have taken us so long to decide to go!
6 comments:
Most of my art history classes are a blur but I do remember Henry Moore's sculpture. If I remember it all these years from pictures in a text book, I can only imagine how memorable it must be seeing his work in person. Glad you were able to enjoy the outdoor exhibits before the rain set in.
I am not familiar with Henry Moore, at all. But that last photograph will be remembered by me, because I am currently reading a novel set in WWII Britain, and the bomb shelters are figuring into the story heavily so far. So glad I have an artistic visualization of it now.
I'm not surprised that this is your first visit even though you live so close. I found that we see more of St. Louis now that we've been gone for 40+ years than we ever did when we lived there!! On the other hand, we've seen most of Nashville since we are always looking for things to do with out-of-towners.
I like Henry Moore's work - there was a fab exhibition a few years ago in Kew Gardens (TBC was still in the pram!).
Those are quite the statues. Nice to have something so close for a day of exploring. That depiction of Mothers & Children sleeping is quite a thought invoking piece of art.
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