HMF reports

In an increasingly challenging environment for arts funding, the Foundation has worked hard to extend our reach while continuing to deliver meaningful sculpture projects.

With this in mind, two new initiatives were introduced: the Henry Moore Collectors Circle and the Exceptional Award for Sculpture. An ambition to improve our provision for learning at all levels was also considered a priority, with the appointment of an Engagement Curator at the Institute and the opening of our new Archive building in Perry Green.

The summer of 2017 saw the success of Becoming Henry Moore, an exhibition of our founder’s early work that travelled to both our venues. Highlights of our international activity include exhibitions in Denmark, Germany, a three-city tour of Poland and an extensive retrospective in France, staged in partnership with the Fonds Hélène & Édouard Leclerc pour la Culture.

The programme of exhibitions at the Institute excelled in its diversity, with Jiro Takamatsu: The Temperature of Sculpture and Senga Nengudi bringing important but little-known artists to UK audiences for the first time, while the strength of our collections and partnership with Leeds Art Gallery were showcased in exhibitions such as David Dye: Devices, Ghisha Koenig: Machines Restrict Their Movement and The Sculpture Collections.

2015-17 saw the completion of several major projects across the Foundation, including the building of a new visitor centre and archive at Henry Moore Studios & Gardens, as well as a new website and brand redesign.

Moore’s continued relevance was illustrated by the Foundation’s partnership with fashion house Burberry, whose Spring 2017 Collection was entirely inspired by Moore’s life and work.

In this period the Henry Moore Institute presented fifteen exhibitions, including City Sculpture Projects 1972, which displayed Nicholas Monro’s extraordinary five-metre tall King Kong overlooking Leeds’ busiest thoroughfare; The Body Extended: Sculpture and Prosthetics, which included a new work by Rebecca Warren; and a focused display showed Eleanor Antin’s CARVING: A Traditional Sculpture.

Though our events program, sculpture was brought out of the gallery and into the streets of Leeds with performative works by Neal White, Annea Lockwood and Gordon Matta-Clark.

The highlight of the 2013 season at Perry Green was undoubtedly Moore Rodin, our busiest ever exhibition to date.

There was further opportunity to see Moore in dialogue with another artist offered in Bacon Moore: Flesh and Bone at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

During this period, work continued in the background towards redeveloping the visitor centre and archive at Henry Moore Studios & Gardens, with the first building work starting in early 2015.

The Henry Moore Institute in Leeds presented major exhibitions by Dennis Oppenheim and Gego in a busy programme. The Event Sculpture, an ambitious undertaking featuring nine performance-based artists, saw the Institute turned inside-out as the building itself became a platform for sculptural interventions.

Additionally, in 2014 the Institute spearheaded Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle’s commission of a new sculpture by Thomas Houseago.

The financial years 2011 to 2013 saw a noticeable growth in the Foundation’s international profile, as we became aware of our role as the largest grant-making artist-endowed foundation outside the USA.

This was also a period which marked the start of an extensive re-evaluation of Henry Moore’s reputation, with innovative exhibitions of his work in London, New York and Perry Green.

An extensive and exciting programme of twenty exhibitions at the Henry Moore Institute explored a range of themes, from arte povera to the radical beginnings of performance art.

Exhibitions included Sarah Lucas: Ordinary Things, United Enemies: The Problem of Sculpture in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, Mario Merz: What Is to Be Done? and 1913: the Shape of Time.

2010 saw a long overdue reappraisal of Moore’s work in plaster at the Musée Rodin in Paris, with over 100,000 visitors attracted to see sculptures, works on paper, and a recreation of Moore’s maquette studio.

After its season at Perry Green, Henry Moore: Prints and Portfolios toured to the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds in early 2011.

Other exhibitions at the Institute this year delved into historical contexts, with highlights including Ice Age Sculpture, Angkor Wat: From Temple to Text, and Roman to English: The Migration of Forms in Early Northumberland.

Modern and contemporary sculpture was also on display, in exhibitions such as Savage Messiah: The Creation of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Out of My Mouth: The Photosculptures of Alina Szapocznikow and Undone: Making and Unmaking in Contemporary Sculpture.