Henry Moore: The Sixties
Exhibition at Henry Moore Studios & Gardens, Herfordshire
1 April – 30 October 2022
Henry Moore: The Sixties will present a fascinating insight into Moore’s life and work during this pivotal decade in his career.
In the 1960s, Moore embraced new materials and techniques which enabled him to work on an increasingly monumental scale. He incorporated a greater degree of abstraction in his work and satisfied an enormous global demand for his art, which sometimes generated controversy. This exhibition will feature rarely seen sculptures, drawings, graphics and a wealth of archive material drawn entirely from the Henry Moore Foundation’s collection to illuminate the innovation of an artist himself in his sixties but at the height of his powers. The exhibition will be the first held at Henry Moore Studios & Gardens to explore a single decade of Moore’s career.
Of the thirty sculptures to be exhibited, highlights include the monumental plaster Large Spindle Piece 1968, never before exhibited. Over twenty drawings and graphics will reveal Moore’s incredible use of colour, new lithographic printing methods and materials such as felt-pens. Archive footage of the construction of Moore’s innovative plastic studio and the installation of some of his monumental bronzes will also feature.
Themes
Scale and material
By 1960, Moore had fully embraced casting in bronze as his primary method for creating sculpture. Working with professional foundries such as Noack in Berlin, this process allowed Moore to increase the scale of his work, notably to almost 6m high and over 8m long, for his Reclining Figure for the Lincoln Centre in New York made in 1963-65. Later in the decade, Moore experimented with new materials such as polystyrene and fiberglass, which provided further opportunities to increase the scale and speed of production of sculpture and expanded the scope to site works outdoors.
Abstraction
The 1960s were a particularly creative and inventive phase of Moore’s career in which his generally figurative work of the post-war period gave way to more abstract ideas, many of which explore thinner, sharper, ‘knife-edge’ sculptures, compact and interlocking forms or works with powerful, projecting points. It was often organic forms inspired by nature, that Moore felt suited the greatest enlargement. During this period, he produced over two hundred
sculptures. Today, these works are seen as some of the most original and iconic that Moore produced during his career.
Global demand
As the 1960s progressed, Moore’s fame continued to grow thanks to an ever-expanding list of exhibitions, commissions, publications, awards and honours. In a decade defined by social and cultural change, Moore’s powerful abstract forms, and arguably neutral subject matter, proved popular in Europe and America. As well as producing sculpture to meet this demand, Moore began working on several graphic portfolios, which were eagerly awaited by collectors.
Controversy
Moore’s celebrity and the proliferation of his sculptures in public settings around the world generated a degree of controversy, especially amongst other artists. Having been recognised as an avant-garde artist during the 1930s, some now saw his sculpture as oldfashioned and a younger generation were concerned his presence cast too great a shadow. The exhibition will feature press coverage from the 1960s revealing the range of reactions to Moore’s work.
Notes to Editors
About Henry Moore Studios & Gardens
Henry Moore Studios & Gardens is the former home and work-place of sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986). From 1940 until his death in 1986, Moore lived and worked in rural Hertfordshire where he acquired over 60 acres of land and set up various studios, creating the ideal environment in which he could make and display his work and cater to an international demand for exhibitions.
Now open to the public, Henry Moore Studios & Gardens offers a unique insight into the artist’s working practice and showcases a large selection of Moore’s renowned monumental sculptures in the landscape in which they were created.
We also present annually changing exhibitions, which further illuminate the life and work of the sculptor, and are home to the Henry Moore Archive, one of the largest single-artist archives in the world.
Our visitor season runs from 1 April to 30 October 2022
We are open Wednesday to Sunday and Bank Holidays, 11:00–17:00
About the Henry Moore Foundation
The Henry Moore Foundation was founded by the artist and his family in 1977 to encourage public appreciation of the visual arts.
Today we support innovative sculpture projects, devise an imaginative programme of exhibitions and research worldwide, and preserve the legacy of Moore himself: one of the great sculptors of the 20th century, who did so much to bring the art form to a wider audience.
We run two venues, in Leeds and Hertfordshire, showing a mix of Moore’s own work and other sculpture.
We also fund a variety of sculpture projects through our Henry Moore Grants and Research programmes and we have a world-class collection of artworks which regularly tour both nationally and internationally.
A registered charity, we award grants to arts organisations around the world, with a mission to bring great sculpture to as many people as possible.