Cubitts x Henry Moore Institute: curiosity

Errin Hussey (Archivist, Henry Moore Institute): What we have here is some costume from the Helen Chadwick Collection. I’ve chosen this for curiosity for many reasons because firstly it’s often curious for people that there are actually objects in the archive. You’d think there’ll be sketches and photographs but maybe not objects.

Helen Chadwick was really the queen of curiosity, so these were from an installation project that she did early in her career – at university.

She was always curious about societal roles, especially for women – and thinking of herself as a woman and who she was was a central exploration in her work.

We’ve got some books which show lots of her installation projects, all summed up under the umbrella of ‘Studio Girls’. They are divided into sections for example ‘domestic sanitation’, ‘latex glamour rodeo’.

Cubitts: Wow.

Errin: We have some latex costumes in the collection. It turns out latex from the seventies does not last.

Helen Chadwick went so far beyond traditional sculpture. And this is also such a beautiful object and to think that she made it when at university and her literally crafting all of this metal and sewing it.

Cubitts: It’s so interesting to see the attention to detail. It’s an absolutely amazing piece and is perfect for our theme of curiosity.

Errin: It’s so good. And it’s lasted so well, it’s in such good condition. She didn’t just finish and then discard. She always revisited her work.

We have a lot of costumes as well that she hand stitched hair into. We’ve actually got Helen Chadwick’s whole collection – 130 boxes.

Cubitts: Do you see these curiosity principles in other artists and sculptors in the archive as well?

Errin: Yes definitely. Especially from the generation who were following modernist principles. They were thinking outside of the box and thinking about materials.

Cubitts: This is so interesting because the way we’ve approached curiosity at Cubitts is along similar principles. We talk a lot about curiosity. It’s about going out to seek knowledge without having an end goal in mind and letting your curiosity lead you.

It’s about attention to detail, or obsession with detail and the curiosity behind thinking about those individual things and craft is very similar to this. The hand crafted and trying to do things in a different way or reinventing traditional approaches.

But we also follow modernist principles, very much function over form and once you’ve got that you can go off in all different directions.

Notebook on early work (1972-75)

Contains detailed ideas and sketches on the development of early works made when Chadwick was a student, including notes on ‘juicy jokes’, ideas for self portraits and sketches of chocolates entitled ‘erotic exotica’.

Notebook on ‘Ego Geometria Sum’ (1981-83)

Contains detailed notes on the ideas, research and development for ‘Ego Geometria Sum’, including how Chadwick approached the subject of her past and memory.