Displaying items by tag: henry moore foundation

Godfrey Worsdale, the director of BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, will leave his post in July 2015 to take up the role of director at The Henry Moore Foundation, in Leeds.

“Godfrey has made an outstanding contribution to BALTIC during his seven year tenure as director," BALTIC chairman Peter Buchan said in a statement. “The strength of his reputation brought the illustrious Turner Prize to BALTIC, the first non-Tate venue to be accorded that privilege in 2011. It was under his guidance that BALTIC was shortlisted as Museum of the Year in 2013 and the gallery earlier this year welcomed its 6 millionth visitor," he added.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park offers a fresh perspective to the work of Henry Moore (1898–1986) in a major exhibition of more than 120 works considering the artist’s profound relationship with land, something which was fundamental to his practice and fuelled his visual vocabulary. Born into a mining family in Castleford, West Yorkshire, Moore is one of the most important artists of the 20th century and was a founding patron of YSP. "Henry Moore: Back to a Land" is produced in partnership with The Henry Moore Foundation.

"Henry Moore: Back to a Land" explores the artist’s radical notion of placing sculpture in the landscape, something which forever changed British sculpture. Moore was committed to showing his work in the open air and in the rolling hills of YSP’s former Deer Park in particular. Here, it can be experienced with the resident flock of sheep, an animal described by the artist as an ideal foil for the appreciation of his work, being exactly the right size and scale.

Henry Moore’s famous maquette studio will be recreated in a special exhibition curated by the Director of The Henry Moore Foundation, Richard Calvocoressi at Gagosian Gallery in Davies Street, London. Henry Moore: Wunderkammer – Origin of Forms, will run from February 9 –  April 2, 2015.
 
Henry Moore is best known for his large-scale sculptures that occupy public spaces across the world, however the starting-point for these works often came from small pieces of stone, shells, bones, animal skulls and other found objects that the artist collected and displayed in his studio at Perry Green, which is now home to The Henry Moore Foundation.

Not much surprises people outside King's Cross station in London, where the new square is usually a seething mob of anxious commuters, loungers dozing off hangovers on the hard stone benches and lost foreign students.

But when what looked like the white filmy curtains of a giant shower cubicle fell and revealed a huge bronze sculpture by Henry Moore, people stopped in their tracks to stare.

"It's … yeah … different," said Raymond Van Aubel and Michell Chew, holidaymakers from Holland and Indonesia, struggling for the courteous response. "Big. We were stunned, actually."

Widely considered one of the greatest sculptors of all time, British artist Henry Moore played a pivotal role in translating modernism into three dimensions. A new exhibition at the artist’s former home in Hertfordshire, England, examines the influence that Moore’s soaring, organic sculptures had on contemporary art.

“Body & Void: Echoes of Moore in Contemporary Art” presents works by some of the world’s most celebrated contemporary arts, including Damien Hirst, Rachel Whiteread, Antony Gormley, and Anish Kapoor. Works by a number of post-war artists, such as Joseph Beuys and Bruce Nauman, are also included in the exhibition. Site specific works by leading British artists Richard Deacon and Robert Long have been commissioned as part of the show.

“Body & Void” presents sculptures that examine Moore’s central themes, including the exploration of internal and external space, mother and child, and figures in a landscape, alongside contemporary works that touch on the same topics. For example, Hirst’s “Mother and Child (Divided),” a bisected cow and calf floating in giant tanks of formaldehyde, appears between Moore’s rose marble sculpture “Mother and Child” and “Stringed Mother and Child,” a single plaster cast that features two forms connected by a series of cords. The three works explore the same mother and child relationship in vastly different ways.

“Body and Void” fills the galleries and gardens at Perry Green, where Moore lived and worked for 50 years. The estate is also home to the Henry Moore Foundation, which was established by the artist in 1977. Although Moore amassed considerable wealth during his lifetime, he chose to live frugally and put most of his fortune towards endowing the Foundation, which continues to support education and promotion of the arts.  

“Body & Void: Echoes of Moore in Contemporary Art” will remain on view at Perry Green through October 26.

A bronze sculpture by the British artist Henry Moore was stolen from a park in Scotland last week. Standing Figure (1950), which measures over 7 feet tall, was one of four Moore pieces in the Glenkiln Sculpture Park, which includes works by Auguste Rodin and Jacob Epstein.

This not the first time that a large, sculptural work by Moore has been targeted by thieves. Last year, two men were arrested for stealing a sculpture from the estate of the Henry Moore Foundation in England and in 2005 Moore’s monumental Reclining Figure was stolen from the grounds. Police believe that the sculpture, which weighed over two tons, could have been melted down and sold for scrap metal.

Moore amassed considerable wealth after gaining recognition for his large-scale, semi-abstract works and fulfilled numerous significant commissions. Despite his affluence, Moore lived frugally and put most of his fortune towards endowing the Henry Moore Foundation, which continues to support education and promotion of the arts.

An exhibition of monumental works by the British sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986) is now on view at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The show, which includes 12 large-scale sculptures, inaugurates the museum’s new “outdoor gallery,” which was created as part of a major institution-wide renovation that concluded this spring.

The exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Henry Moore Foundation and features many works that have never been on public view in the Netherlands. Highlights of the exhibition include Reclining Woman: Elbow 1981, which has not left the Leeds Art Gallery since its creation over 30 years ago; the interactive sculpture Large Two Forms 1966; and Large Reclining Figure 1984, which measures nearly 30 feet tall. The sculptures, which are made of either bronze or fiberglass, span Moore’s post-war career and include his semi-abstract forms as well as his renowned sculptures of reclining figures.

The Henry Moore exhibition is the first in a series of annual international sculpture displays that will take place at the Rijksmuseum over the next five years. Moore’s sculptures will be on view in the gardens through September 1, 2013.

Two permanent galleries dedicated to the work of the English sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986) opened on Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at the Tate Britain in London. The museum presents a collection of approximately 30 works including film, photographs, maquettes, drawings, and large-scale sculptures. Moore’s Recumbent Figure (1938), which was the first of the artist’s works to join the Tate’s collection, is also on view.

Moore, who served as a trustee of the Tate for two terms from 1941-1956, worked closely with the institution. The first gallery of his works explores the artist’s relationship to the museum and how the Tate amassed its Moore collection. The artist made a number of generous donations to the institution during his life including a set of prints, which he gave to the Tate in 1976 and 36 sculptures, which he bequeathed to the museum in 1978. The Tate currently owns over 600 of Moore’s works ranging in date from 1921-1984.

The Tate’s second gallery focuses on Moore’s array of public commissions and the process he used to create them. During the 1950s and 1960s, Moore worked almost entirely in plaster, which was then cast in bronze. Most of his works from this period are figurative or centered on the landscape and the natural world. Moore’s large-scale sculptures set in a wide-ranging array of settings from this time are some of his best-known works. The sculptures in this gallery are complemented by drawings and maquettes as well as films and photographs of Moore at work in his studio.

A highly successful sculptor, Moore used the money he made from his work to endow the Henry Moore Foundation, which continues to support education and the promotion of the arts.

A cast of Auguste Rodin’s (1840-1917) Monument to the Burghers of Calais, which has stood in the gardens next to London’s House of Parliament for almost a century, will be moved to the gardens at Perry Green in Hertfordshire, England for the upcoming exhibition Moore Rodin. The show, which opens on March 29, 2013, will compare the works of Henry Moore (1898-1986) and Rodin, two major figures in modern sculpture.

Perry Green, which was Moore’s home for over 40 years until his death in 1986, now houses a gallery, 70 acres of gardens, and the Henry Moore Foundation. The Foundation is responsible for organizing the groundbreaking exhibition, which marks the first time another artist has been shown alongside Moore at Perry Green. Moore was an ardent admirer of Rodin’s work and considered Monument to the Burghers of Calais the greatest public sculpture in London.

Moore Rodin will include a number of loans from the Musée Rodin in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Musée Rodin is lending Adam (1881), the third maquette for the seminial The Gates of Hell (circa 1881-82), and Walking Man, Large Torso (1906) for the exhibition. The Musée Bourdelle in Paris will lend the Foundation Walking Man (1899), a cast of which Moore owned. In addition to the sculptures, the exhibition will include an extensive selection of drawings by both artists and photographs taken by Moore of his cast of Walking Man at Perry Green.

Moore Rodin will be on view through October 27, 2013.

Henry Moore’s (1898-1986) severely damaged sculpture Knife Edge Two Piece (1965) will finally be restored according to the Parliamentary Art Collection. The sculpture, which is prominently displays outside of the Houses of Parliament in London, is England’s most revered work by the British sculptor.

Moore and the Contemporary Art Society donated Knife Edge Two Piece to England in 1967 but the work fell into disrepair after administrative changes left it with no legal owner. Eventually, the British government suggested that the House of Commons take ownership for the sculpture and that the Parliamentary Art Collection take responsibility for the its care.

The bronze sculpture, which is marred by discoloration, deterioration, and incised graffiti, will undergo conservation beginning February 16, 2013. Conservator Rupert Harris will lead the effort, which involves removing the sculpture’s protective lacquer and abrading its surface to eliminate the damage. The work will then be repatinated and treated with wax in order to protect it from future environmental damage.

The conservation project is expected to cost a little over $50,000 with most of the funding coming from the Parliamentary Art Collection. The Henry Moore Foundation will contribute about $17,000 to the effort. The Knife Edge Two Piece restoration project is expected to reach completion at the end of March 2013.