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Exhibition

Sleep in Sculpture: Babies from The Bowes

Henry Moore Institute, Leeds

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Sleep is an interesting and appropriate subject for sculpture. Sculpture is always ‘still’, but we read life into it. In this case, are these babies about to waken from their slumbers, or are these little tableaux memorials to lives that were too brief?

Between May and June 1996, the Henry Moore Institute presented an ambitious exhibition of 35 contemporary artists in The Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle. While this exhibition, Private View, was at The Bowes, a reciprocal display featured at the Institute.

The Bowes Museum houses the collection formed by John and Josephine Bowes during the 1860s and 70s. Though both the founders died before the Museum opened its doors in 1892, it stands as a monument to their passion for collecting. But the Museum is not simply a monument; as John and Josephine Bowes had no heirs, it can also be seen as their legacy.

There are few sculptures in the collections, but there is one noticeable trend amongst those on show. They represent infants in repose; we presume they are asleep, although one could also read them as dead. In either case, they symbolise the relationship between the Bowes, who had no children, and their much-loved museum.

Publications

Sleep in Sculpture: Babies from The Bowes

Sleep is an interesting subject for sculpture. Sculpture is always still, but we read life into it. Focusing on sculptures of infants in repose, on loan at the Henry Moore Institute from the Bowes collection, three writers ask: are these babies about to waken from their slumbers, or are these little tableaux memorials to lives that were all too brief?

Betwixt-and-Between
Fiona Russell

Fair images of Sleep
Alison Yarrington

Sleep and Sculpture
Briony Fer

Buy Sleep in Sculpture: Babies from The Bowes (Essays on Sculpture issue 13)

Private View

Private View looks at the nature of art, collecting and display in the context of The Bowes Museum in County Durham. It includes over one hundred works by thirty-five British and German artists, including Eric Bainbridge, Stephan Balkenhol, Anya Gallaccio, Asta Gröting, Georg Herold, Damien Hirst, Thomas Schütte, Wiebke Siem, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Gillian Wearing

With an introduction by Robert Hopper (Director of the Henry Moore Foundation), extensive installation photography of the exhibition and essays by Elizabeth Conran (Director, The Bowes Museum), Viet Gorner (Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg) and Penelope Curtis (Curator of the Henry Moore Institute).

Buy Private View

Getting here

This exhibition took place in Gallery 4 of the Henry Moore Institute.