"No one exists alone": Henry Moore and W.H. Auden’s Graphic Encounters

Join us for a reading of Auden’s poems, followed by a discussion of Moore and Auden’s relationship.

In 1972, Henry Moore and the writer W.H. Auden began collaborating on an illustrated portfolio of poems from across Auden’s career. Moore said of the visual component of the project, that he decided not to illustrate, but to complement and create contrasts to Auden’s words.

The resulting publication, Auden Poems, Moore Lithographs, was completed after Auden’s death in September 1973. It contains some of Moore’s finest, but also most mysterious graphic work: figures and architectural forms veiled in darkness, and cracked, barren landscapes.

In this event, introduced by Tom Laver (Digital Collections Assistant, Henry Moore Studios & Gardens ), readings of Auden’s poems by Michael Symmons Roberts (poet, writer and broadcaster) will be presented in parallel with visuals of Moore’s illustrations, followed by a discussion of the new meanings from the encounter between two of the twentieth century’s pre-eminent creative visionaries.