988. Henry Moore (1898-1986), English,

Draped Reclining Mother and Baby, 1983.

Bronze, length: 265.5 cm.

The Henry Moore Foundation, Leeds.

 

 

Henry Moore

(1898 Castleford – 1986 Hertfordshire)

 

The British sculptor Henry Moore is considered one of the most important sculptors of the twentieth century. His bronze and stone sculptures constitute the major twentieth-century manifestation of the humanist tradition in sculpture. The son of a Yorkshire coal miner, he was enabled to study at the Royal College of Art by a rehabilitation grant after being wounded in World War I. His early works were strongly influenced by the Mayan sculpture he saw in a Paris museum. From around 1931 onwards, he experimented with abstract art, combining abstract shapes with human figures, at times leaving the human figure behind altogether. Much of his work is monumental, and he is particularly well known for a series of reclining nudes. These female figures, echoing the forms of mountains, valleys, cliffs and caves, extended and enriched the landscape tradition which he embraced as part of his English artistic heritage.