Henry Spencer Moore OM CH was a British artist, internationally celebrated and renowned for his semi-abstract bronze sculptures.
Following army service during World War One, Moore enrolled at the Leeds School of Art in 1919 and continued his studies at the Royal College of Art, London after winning a scholarship in 1921. Moore’s oeuvre is principally characterized by organic shapes and figurative motifs. Themes of the mother and child, family groups, reclining figures and the ‘pierced form’ became integral to Moore’s practice and some of his most recognised themes in both sculpture and paint. His sculptural work developed from unique hand carving of natural stone, to molding and casting in plaster and bronze to monumental scale. ‘Primitivism’ and non-Western art forms influenced Moore’s early practice and throughout the 1930’s he found much inspiration in Modernist movements and artists including Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti. By the 1930’s Moore was already a well-established name in British art. He joined the transitory Seven and Five Society, where under Ben Nicholson’s new leadership sought to move British art into modern abstraction. The group staged Britain’s first entirely abstract exhibition at London’s Zwemmer Gallery and set the scene for the most advanced artistic activity in England at the time.
During the Second World War Moore worked as an official War Artist. With limited resources to hand, Moore dedicated himself solely to drawing and was commissioned to create a series of works, known as ‘Shelter Drawings’, documenting wartime conditions and resilience of the public in the London Underground during the Blitz. After a two-year break, Moore returned to making sculpture in 1943 with a commission for a sculpture of the Madonna and Child for St Matthews Church, Northampton.
International acclaim was secured in 1948, winning first prize at the first Venice Biennale since the Second World War. The years that followed marked a shift for the artist, moving away from the literal human figure and towards radical, abstract shapes that alluded to these forms. Moore was the first modern English sculptor to achieve global critical renown within his own lifetime and continues to be thought of as one of the most important and impactful sculptors of the 20th century. Notable global commissions include the large marble carving for the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris, the brick wall relief for the Bouwcentrum in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the two-part bronze statue of a reclining figure for the Lincoln Center in New York City, the architectural Time/Life Building Screen, London and the nuclear energy sculpture for the University of Chicago.