Henry Moore

The son of a coal miner, Henry Moore carried remembrances of childhood that presaged his becoming a sculptor—from the imposing (and intriguing) mining companies in his native Yorkshire, to attending Sunday school and hearing a story about the Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor Michelangelo (1475–1564). Early in his career, Moore viewed sculptures as solid, unitary blocks, but by the 1930s he was championing an abstract sculptural vocabulary that included “truth to materials” and “significant form.” He believed these artistic concepts were best achieved through direct carving in stone and wood, although he also worked in cast bronze. Moore introduced holes in the form that actually penetrated the piece, thus uniting the so-called front and back views. Even when engaged in his most abstract work, Moore remained firmly committed to the expressive possibilities of the human figure, explaining, “For me sculpture is based on and remains close to the human figure.” From the end of World War II, he focused on his preferred subject, the figure, and inventively united a modern formalist aesthetic with classical humanistic thought, which incorporated psychological and associative elements.