Romanesque: Stone Sculpture from Medieval England

The inaugural exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute presents some of the greatest surviving examples of English medieval sculpture.

Featuring a group of figurative sculptures from York Minster, most of them recently restored and never previously exhibited, Romanesque: Stone Sculpture from Medieval England gives viewers a rare chance to come face to face with our artistic heritage.

The Romanesque art of Europe of the eleventh and twelfth centuries can be characterised by a certain solidity, as well as by the self-conscious inclusion of classical elements. It was this monumentality of sculptural forms that first excited Henry Moore; as a child, he admired the solid carving and savage imagery of the twelfth-century church of St John the Baptist near his family home in Castleford. Just as Henry Moore was proud of his Yorkshire origins, we are proud to open the Henry Moore Institute with an exhibition celebrating sculpture from Northern England.