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Henry Moore Studios & Gardens reopens on 16 April with Encounters, a season of stories and events.

See & Do

Exhibition

The Very Impress of the Object: Sculpture and Photography from Fox-Talbot to the Present Day

Henry Moore Institute, Leeds

This event has passed

A black and white photo of Henry Moore, a man with dark hair in his 40s, standing behind an abstract, carved, wooden sculpture of a female human form.

The why and how works of art have been photographed since the mid-nineteenth century is a complex issue, and is explored here through photos of sculptors and their work.

During a lecture given in 1855, the reverend F.A.S. Marshall showed a photograph taken at Notre dame in Paris to his audience: “Look at the rich mass of sculpture over the west door… what more could you desire to bring before you the work and genius of the sculptor? What could be more truthful than this, the very impress of the object?”

Marshall’s emphasis on the ‘truthfulness’ of photography as a medium is an ongoing theme in discussions about photographing works of art. For more than a century and a half after Marshall’s lecture, viewers have continued to see the documentary value of photographic images of sculpture.

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), though using sculpted objects as subjects for his photographic experiments, considered photography a tool for the lazy artist unwilling or unable to undertake the tedious task of copying reality onto paper.

Despite Marshall and Fox Talbot’s claims, photography of sculpture is a distinct and separate field from sculpture itself. One photograph, or even a series of photographs, can never capture the sensation of seeing a sculpture in the round, where changes in light and shadow as well as the viewer’s position shifts appearances.

A black and white photo of Henry Moore, a man with dark hair in his 40s, standing behind an abstract, carved, wooden sculpture of a female human form.
Henry Moore in his Studio at Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, 1946. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Photo: Bill Brandt (gelatin silver print, made in 1976).

Getting here

This exhibition took place in the Upper Sculpture Study Gallery of Leeds Art Gallery, which is curated by the Henry Moore Institute.

Leeds Art Gallery

The Headrow
Leeds
LS1 3AA

United Kingdom

T:  0113 378 5350
E:  art.gallery@leeds.gov.uk

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