Yorkshire Sculpture Park TEACHERS' RESOURCE PACK Henry Moore: Back to a Land

Yorkshire Sculpture Park TEACHERS’ RESOURCE PACK Henry Moore: Back to a Land

7 MARCH–6 SEPTEMBER 2015 EXHIBITION LOCATIONS The exhibition takes place in the Underground Gallery and in the open air (Formal Terrace, Country Park and Bothy Garden). The What’s On Today & Map leaflet can be used with this resource. Our Family Activities leaflet also has lots of creative ideas relating to the exhibition and can be picked up at the Information Desk or downloaded from the website. A more extensive resource pack is available in the Resource area in YSP Centre.

ABOUT THE ARTIST Henry Moore was born in Castleford in 1898 and became one of the most important British sculptors of the 20th century. His upbringing in Yorkshire and the local landscape had a huge influence on his work. Moore was a founding patron of Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP), first visiting the Park in 1979.

Moore was a sculptor who carved in stone and marble and also created large bronze sculptures. He enjoyed working outdoors and made sculpture for the open air. Moore’s main subject was the figure, particularly the ‘reclining figure’ and ‘mother and child’. He used abstract form to connect the human body with nature and the landscape, and his sculptures are reminiscent of rock formations, bone and other natural forms.

Moore married Irina Radetsky in 1929 and had a daughter, Mary, in 1946. By the late 1940s, Moore was a hugely successful artist and undertook major commissions around the world. He died in 1986 but his work remains incredibly popular and continues to influence new generations of artists.

A more extensive biography of Henry Moore can be found at the end of this resource.

For further research visit: henry-moore.org ysp.co.uk/henrymoore 1964–65 Perry Green. Green. 1964–65 Perry Points, Piece No.1: Way Three 1969 bronze Henry Moore with Henry Moore Photo Budd Weintraub; The Henry Moore Foundation archive. archive. Foundation The Henry Moore Budd Weintraub; Photo Forms, Two Large ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

‘Sculpture is an art of the open air. Daylight, sunlight, is necessary to it, and for me its best setting and complement is nature.’ Henry Moore 1

Henry Moore: Back to a Land sheds new light on the importance of the land as a source of inspiration for Moore and his curiosity with what lies beneath – from the coalfields and geology of Britain to bones and skeletal structures. The exhibition explores the artist’s radical notion of placing his sculpture in the landscape and the importance of the earth in his creative thinking.

The title, Henry Moore: Back to a Land, refers to Jacquetta Hawkes’ book A Land, published in 1951. Illustrated by Moore, A Land was a defining British book of the post-war decade, evoking an image and history of Britain ‘where nature, man and art appear all in one piece.’ 2

In the exhibition, Moore’s monumental bronze sculptures can be seen outdoors. It was always Moore’s wish to see his work in the natural landscape, amongst sheep and against dramatic backdrops of the changing skies and weather. His sculptures appear as monuments in the landscape, reminiscent of prehistoric structures or rock formations. A series of lithographs of Stonehenge feature in the exhibition. Stonehenge connects man with land and the monumentality of these sructures is suggestive of sculptural form.

The land beneath is a subject of his drawings of coal miners, seen emerging from the coal seams, and were produced when Moore visited Wheldale Colliery, Castleford, during the war. A small selection of Moore’s famous Shelter drawings, created in the same period, depict anonymous people sheltering in the London Underground during the Blitz. Moore’s interest in a subterranean world – of man’s relationship with the earth and of the human form – are brought together in these drawings.

Moore studied nature and was fascinated by the structures and forms within it, from bones to pebbles, gnarled roots, clouds, shells and chrysalises. Some of his observational drawings are on display and connections can be made between these and his larger sculptures.

Mary Moore, the artist’s daughter, has curated the final room in the Underground Gallery. This contains never before seen personal artefacts, including sketches, notes, photographs and tools which give a unique insight into Moore’s working process. ‘Objet Trouvé’ (found objects), historical artefacts from world cultures and natural forms collected by Moore reveal something of the ‘artist’s eye’ – how Moore saw the world.

The exhibition is organised by Richard Calvocoressi, Director of the Henry Moore Foundation; Peter Murray, Executive Director of YSP and Dr Helen Pheby, YSP Senior Curator; and is supported by the Henry Moore Foundation.

Upright Motive No.7; Upright Motive No.1: Glenkiln Cross; Upright Motive No.2, 1955-56 bronze. Courtesy Tate BEFORE YOUR VISIT

Henry Moore’s father worked in a coal mine and was determined that his sons should never have to. Find out about the working conditions for coal miners in the early part of twentieth century. ncm.org.uk/ discoveryuk.com/web/coal/Photos/uk-history-of-coal-mining/ screenonline.org.uk/history/id/1198219/

‘ I remember a huge natural outcrop at a place (Adel) near Leeds which as a young boy impressed me tremendously – it had a powerful stone, something like Stonehenge has – and also the slag heaps of the Yorkshire mining villages, the slag heaps which for me as a boy, as a young child, were like mountains. They had the scale of the pyramids; they had this triangular, bare, stark quality that was just as though one were in the Alps.’ Henry Moore 3 • Find out about Stonehenge. Why do you think it was created? How was it made? Are there other similar structures in Britain and the world? Ask children to come to their own conclusions on what Stonehenge was for. • Ask children to talk to parents or carers about places that impressed them when they were children.

‘There was a great contrast between the weekdays when you would play in the streets and the weekends when the countryside was what mattered.’ Henry Moore 4

Ask children to talk about... • What they like to do at the weekends? • Have they ever been somewhere completely different to where they live? • Is there a place which is special for them? Go for a nature walk – collect natural objects, look at the shape of clouds, trees, twigs and rocks.

Look at artists who were working at the same time as Henry Moore: Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland, Naum Gabo, Barbara Hepworth, Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brancusi, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Jacob Epstein. Think about the similarities and differences with Moore. 1984 fiberglass. 1984 fiberglass.

Large Reclining Figure, Reclining Large EXPLORE & CREATE Suggestions for activities, discussion points for groups visiting YSP and activities to do back at school.

THEME ONE: THE FIGURE AND THE LAND

In Gallery One, Formal Terrace and Country Park ‘It is this mixture of figure and landscape. It’s what I try in my sculpture. It’s a metaphor for the human relationship with the earth, with mountains and landscape.’ Henry Moore 5

Henry Moore developed an abstract sculptural language that combined representations of the human figure with references to natural forms, such as shells, pebbles, bones and rock formations. Moore focused on the female figure, as well as on subjects such as ‘mother and child’, the reclining figure and the head. His sculptural figures are sometimes reminiscent of an ancient monument; weathered, aged and timeless.

Moore’s sculptures of reclining figures may suggest hills, hollows, arches or caves. The organic shapes undulate like rolling hills and dales, or are jagged and gouged, like sharp-edged rock faces.

Sometimes the figures are made up of two or three elements, or are pierced so we can see the landscape through the holes and sections. Representing the figure in two or three parts means we don’t expect it to be ‘realistic’, instead it can be something else – a rock, a landscape. It has multiple views, rather than just a front or a back, and as we move around the sculpture, the spaces and parts overlap, open up and create a changing view of the landscape or setting in which it is placed, as well as of the figure itself.

At Yorkshire Sculpture Park Look at Moore’s sculptures of the human figure.

• Move around the sculptures of reclining figures. Imagine the sculptures were rocks or landscape and you were a tiny figure standing beneath. How would it feel to be there? What would the weather be like? Imagine climbing and exploring this special place.

• What position is the figure in? Try and get in the same position. How does it feel? How would you move?

• Is the sculpture in two or more parts? Does it still look like a figure? Draw the outline of the sculpture from different viewpoints. Don’t worry if they overlap. How do the shapes change?

• Find a figure sculpture that particularly interests you. Who do you think they are? Create a personality for them. What would they tell you? Close your eyes and listen. What can your sculpture hear?

Activities back at school Transform your drawings of the sculptures into imaginary painted landscape scenes. Are the shoulders a cliff top? The feet a rocky premonitory? How could your landscape be a setting for a story?

Get into the position of one of the sculptures seen on your visit. Take it in turns to draw your group’s ‘living sculpture’.

Imagine you have jumped inside a sculpture. Write a story based on what you hear and see in the gallery. What happens when all the visitors leave? 1978 Roman travertine marble travertine Roman 1978

Draped Reclining Figure, Figure, Reclining Draped THEME TWO: IDEAS FROM NATURE

Gallery Two ‘Besides the human form, I am tremendously excited by all natural forms, such as cloud formations, birds, trees and their roots, and mountains, which are to me the wrinkling of the earth’s surface, like drapery.’ Henry Moore 6

Henry Moore collected, studied and drew objects which he found outside in nature, such as pebbles, shells and bone. He was interested in the form and shape of things and observation of nature underpinned all his work. Moore noticed how pebbles had been worn by the sea, the asymmetry of tree growth, the jagged rhythms of rock strata. He was fascinated by the mystery of rocks and caves.

At Yorkshire Sculpture Park Look for Moore’s drawings of natural objects in Gallery Two.

• What do the drawings remind you of? • Has Moore used line or tone or both? What drawing materials has he used? What do you think he is noticing or paying attention to?

Bones can interlock, fit into each other, be rounded, tapering, solid or fragile. Which sculptures or drawings remind you of bone?

What other natural forms do some of the sculptures remind you of?

Look at Henry Moore’s drawings of rocks. Can you see faces or figures in the rocks? What story do they tell?

Look at Henry Moore’s etchings of Elephant Skull. How has the skull become a landscape?

Use a viewfinder to find a close-up detail of a sculpture in the gallery. Could it be a landscape? Make a quick stetch.

As you walk around outdoors, collect natural objects which you think have an interesting shape or form, i.e. seeds, twigs, leaves*. How are they similar to Henry Moore’s sculptures? Visit James Turrell’s Deer Shelter Skyspace and watch the clouds. What could the clouds be?

*Remember to only collect natural objects from the floor. Never pick flowers or living things.

Activities back at school Children choose an object from their natural collection and describe it in detail to a partner without showing it to them. Encourage children to look closely at the colours, shapes, textures and size. One child should listen carefully and draw the object while it is being described. Afterwards children compare the drawing with the real object. What else do they notice about object?

Encourage children to create ‘studies’ of natural objects. Use a magnifying glass to look closer. Combine different materials, i.e. coloured pencils, pen, watercolour, pencils on one sheet. Draw using line, tone and colour. Drawings could focus on the outline or texture etc. Encourage children to draw objects from different viewpoints and to move them around.

Children trace or draw outlines and shapes from their observational drawings. Cut out the individual shapes and arrange to create ‘designs for sculpture’. Imagine the forms on a huge scale. What could it be a sculpture of? Give it a title. , 1979–80 etching, etching, 1979–80 , 1973 lithograph. lithograph. 1973 Photo Michael Phipps; The Henry Moore The Henry Moore Michael Phipps; Photo archive. Foundation Reclining Figure in Dark Landscape Figure Reclining The Henry Moore Photo and drypoint. aquatint archive. Foundation Stripes, with Red Figure Reclining THEME THREE: UNDERGROUND/OVERGROUND

Gallery Three Henry Moore depicted the land below as well as the land above. His Shelter and Coalminer drawings depict man in relation to a subterranean world, whilst his drawings of the weathered land capture the human experience of being in the elements and in nature.

Henry Moore witnessed London Underground platforms packed with sheltering people during the 1940 London Blitz. He returned to the scene again and again to draw the sheltering, reclining figures and worked the images into larger, finished drawings.

‘I was fascinated by the sight of people camping out deep underground. I have never seen so many reclining figures and even the holes out of which the trains were coming seemed to me like holes in my sculpture…. They were cut off from what was happening above, but they were aware of it. There was tension in the air.’ Henry Moore 7

In his drawings, the figures have blank expressions; appearing ghost-like, shrouded like mummified forms in the darkness. Moore would have drawn first with wax crayon, creating scratchy, wiry lines, before covering the image with dark watercolour so that the white or grey forms emerge out of the darkness.

During the war, Moore also visited Wheldale Colliery where his father had worked. As with the Shelter Drawings, Moore focuses on the forms of limbs, the subtleties of light and shade, the rhythmic forms and groupings.

In contrast to this subterranean world, Moore was also interested in the changing, ephemeral nature of the weather and the seasons. He used blotting paper, crayons, watercolour and charcoal to create atmospheric, brooding observations of skies and landscapes. Although recognisable as landscapes, these drawings explore abstract shape and form, light and dark. As a student, Henry Moore visited Stonehenge by moonlight. His lithographs capture the mysterious elemental quality of these stone structures.

At Yorkshire Sculpture Park Look at Moore’s drawings of the landscape in different weathers and compare them to his studies of coalminers and shelter drawings.

• Imagine you were a miner digging for coal in a confined space. Sometimes the tunnels were less than three feet high. Imagine digging coal from the seams. How do you think it would feel? • Look at Shelter Drawing (1940). Who do you think the people are? With a partner, invent their story – where they live, work, their interests and personalities. Make them into ‘real’ people. • Outside in the Park, take notice of the weather, the wind and the temperature. Look at the the skies, the way the trees are moving – can you draw the weather? • What words do the images of Stonehenge conjure up? What mystery story can you invent for this setting? , 1973 lithograph. Photo Michael Phipps; The Henry Moore Foundation archive Foundation The Henry Moore Michael Phipps; Photo lithograph. 1973 ,

Stonehenge IV Stonehenge Activities back at School Start a drawing by covering a piece of white paper in charcoal or soft pencil. Use a rubber as a pencil to create an underground scene, rubbing out areas to vary the tone. Try working back into your drawing with pencil.

Create a weathered landscape by soaking paper in water then adding drops of watercolour, letting it disperse across the sheet. Blot the wet paper with another sheet. What image has been transferred? When dry, work into both drawings with coloured pencils to create a ‘weathered landscape’. Think about what ‘weather experience’ or atmosphere you want to create.

“I hit upon this technique by accident, sometime before the war when doing a drawing to amuse a young niece of mine. I used some of the cheap wax crayons (which she had bought from Woolworth’s) in combination with a wash of water-colour, and found, of course, that the water-colour did not ‘take’ on the wax, but only on the background. I found also that if you use a light-coloured or even white wax crayon, then a dark depth of background can easily be produced by painting with dark water-colour over the whole sheet of paper.” Henry Moore 8

Encourage your class to experiment with the technique described by Henry Moore.

Working in small groups, children create a short play based on two characters from the Shelter Drawings. End the scene with them emerging from the shelter. What do they discover?

Stonehenge A, 1973 lithograph. Photo Michael Phipps; The Henry Moore Foundation archive THEME FOUR: INSPIRATION AND PROCESS

Project Space ‘Since my student days I have liked the shape of bones, and have drawn them, studied them in the Natural History Museum, found them on sea-shores and saved them out of the stewpot.’ Henry Moore 9

The project space contains personal artefacts, found objects (objet trouvé), sketches, notes, maquettes, photographs and tools belonging to Moore. These objects have been selected by his daughter, Mary Moore, and include artefacts from different world cultures and objects which the artist found and collected. This collection gives a unique insight into Moore’s working process and reveals something of the ‘artist’s eye’, what interested and influenced Moore and how he saw the world.

At Yorkshire Sculpture Park • Organise the objects into categories – animals, figures, faces etc. • Find five found objects that are man-made and five that are natural found objects. What do you think Moore found interesting about these objects? • Find an object that interests you. Why do you like it? Does it remind you of anything else you’ve seen in the exhibition? • Find an object that reminds you of a dragon or a strange creature.

Activities back at School

Bring into school a collection of objects from your home that say something about you. Make a mini-display to create a self-portrait. What does the collection reveal about you and your interests?

Start a collection of things you like or find interesting. Don’t worry about why! As your collection grows, think about what the items have in common.

Key Words

, 1982 charcoal, chinagraph, ballpoint pen, chalk on cream lightweight wove paper. paper. wove lightweight chalk on cream pen, ballpoint chinagraph, charcoal, 1982 , , 1981 lithograph. Photo Michael Phipps; The Henry Moore Foundation archive Foundation The Henry Moore Michael Phipps; Photo lithograph. 1981 ,

Rocky Landscape Rocky archive Foundation The Henry Moore Photo Head Rock HENRY MOORE: A BIOGRAPHY AND CONTEXTUAL INFORMATION Henry Spencer Moore was born in 1898 in Castleford, which was then a small coal mining town. His father, Raymond, worked in the coal mines as a Pit Deputy and then Under-Manager of Wheldale Colliery in Castleford.

Moore’s interest in landscape can be traced back to his childhood in Yorkshire. The contrast between the industrial town of Castleford and the surrounding countryside and moors made a strong impression on the young Henry Moore.

‘We never went away on holidays, but we went walking or bicycling – not far, say the two or three miles to Pontefract. We would go blackberry picking or collecting chrysalises. And I loved fishing in streams and pools and in old clay quarries.’ Henry Moore 10

Raymond was determined that his children should be well-educated in order to avoid working in the mines. On leaving school, Moore took his father’s advice and trained to be an elementary school teacher, even though he really wanted to become a sculptor.

Moore was 16 years old when the Great War broke out. He enlisted in 1917 in the Civil Service Rifles, and took part in the Battle of Cambrai. There, his regiment suffered a horrific gas attack and he spent two months recovering in hospital. Moore was very influenced by the historical events he lived through. Many critics have related his experience of trauma during the First World War to his representation of the figure as damaged or mutilated. His sculptures have also been interpreted as representing man’s resilience and compassion.

After the First World War Moore decided that the time was right to follow his childhood ambition and he went to Leeds School of Art to train to be a sculptor. In fact he was the first ever sculpture student there. It was at Leeds School of Art that he met fellow student Barbara Hepworth. He further studied at the Royal College of Art in London, which gave him the opportunity to visit many galleries and museums. He was particularly impressed by Mexican and other non-Western sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum. Many artists associated Western art and culture with the mechanical sophistication of war. Like other artists at this time, such as Brancusi, Gaudier-Brzeska and Epstein, Moore was drawn to the art of ancient world cultures as a more ‘authentic’ art form.

From the mid-1920’s until the outbreak of the Second World War, Moore taught, first at the Royal College of Art, then at Chelsea School of Art as Head of the Department of Sculpture. He married Irina Radetsky in 1929 and they moved to a studio in Hampstead, an area which attracted several other artists, including Barbara Hepworth and her husband Ben Nicholson, as well as Roland Penrose, Naum Gabo and art critic Herbert Read.

Moore’s love of sculpting outdoors began as a student. Even though he lived in London he used to spend summers at his sisters’ houses in the Norfolk and Kent countryside, carving in their gardens. He and Irina had a cottage in Dedham, Essex, when they were first married, and Moore rigged up a shelter outdoors as a makeshift studio. In 1935 the couple replaced it with a cottage in Kingston, near Canterbury, drawn by the landscape there. The property also had a five-acre field in which Moore could work.

During the 1930s Moore was influenced by Surrealism and he combined figurative and abstract elements in his work, referencing organic forms. The 1930s saw the foundation of the Ramblers’ Association, the Youth Hostel Association and the Council for the Preservation of Rural England. A concern for the land and the English countryside was something British people felt very strongly about at a time when Britain and national identity felt so under threat by the onset of the Second World War.

War broke out in 1939 and, although Moore was too old to enlist for active service, he felt a responsibility to explore the subject of war through his art. In 1940 Moore started making sketches of people taking shelter in the London Underground during the air raids of the Blitz. Moore was drawn to a scene of bodies packed onto the platforms and recorded the sculptural forms of limbs and bodies whilst capturing the scene’s emotional power. These were significant works in his career as they were bought by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee (WAAC) and shown at the National Gallery. The drawings were instrumental in building the myth of the Blitz as a symbol of British resistance and were very popular with the public. The WAAC also commissioned Moore to draw miners at work at Wheldale Colliery, Castleford, highlighting the importance of industry for the war effort. Moore and Irina moved out of London in late 1940 after their home was hit during an air raid. They moved to a farmhouse in Perry Green, near Much Hadham, Hertfordshire. As his career developed after the war, he spent the rest of his life adding outbuildings and studio spaces to the home. Moore had always preferred to make sculpture outdoors and his studio at Perry Green allowed him to work both indoors and outdoors, pushing sculpture out through the double doors of his studio. His post-war work references the trauma of war but the theme of ‘family’ and ‘mother and child’ offered a more optimistic, redemptive view of humanity. Moore’s sculptures would have also been influenced by the birth of his daughter, Mary, in 1946.

Moore was, by now, a successful international artist. He had a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1947 and won the International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1948. Moore took on a number of assistants to work with him; many of whom became successful sculptors themselves, including Anthony Caro, Phillip King and Isaac Witkin. In 1958 he created Reclining Figure for the UNESCO building in Paris. Political events of the twentieth century had always been integral to his work and later in life he became a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). His work asserts the strength of nature, of the earth and land and of man’s enduring connection with it; a belief tested and informed by the social and political events of the century.

Moore set up the Henry Moore Foundation in 1977 for education and the promotion of the fine arts and was a founding patron of Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Henry Moore died in 1986. By the end of his career, he was the world’s most successful living artist at auction. Perhaps more significantly, his work continues to have a huge influence on artists working today and maintains its popular appeal with the public in Britain and internationally.

REFERENCES

1. James, Philip (ed.) Henry Moore on Sculpture MacDonald, London, 1966. P.97 2. Macfarlane, Robert, Rereading: A Land by Jacquetta Hawkes, The Guardian, Friday 11 May 2012 3. James, Philip (ed.) Henry Moore on Sculpture MacDonald, London, 1966. P.51 4. Hedgecoe, John Henry Spencer Moore, photographed and edited by John Hedgecoe, words by Henry Moore, Nelson, London; Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968. P.36 5. James, Philip (ed.) Henry Moore on Sculpture MacDonald, London, 1966. P.274 6. Hedgecoe, John Henry Spencer Moore, photographed and edited by John Hedgecoe, words by Henry Moore, Nelson, London; Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968. P.131 7. Tate Britain, Teachers and Student Notes, Henry Moore, 2010, P.9 8. Henry Moore, in a letter to E.D. Averill, 11 December 1964 9. James, Philip (ed.) Henry Moore on Sculpture MacDonald, London, 1966. P.278 10. Hedgecoe, John Henry Spencer Moore, photographed and edited by John Hedgecoe, words by Henry Moore, Nelson, London; Simon and Schuster, New York, 1968. P.36 11. Moore, Henry Sculpture in the Open Air Transcript of talk for the British Council, 1955, edited by Robert Melville

OTHER USEFUL BOOKS Henry Moore and Landscape, anthology compiled by Dr Helen Pheby, published by YSP, 2011 Henry Moore in Yorkshire: A family drawing and activity book for Wakefield Art Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (at Bretton Country Park) & Castleford. (ISBN: 086 169 030 0) Read, Herbert Henry Moore: A Study of his Life and Work Thames and Hudson, London, 1965.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS © The authors, photographers and Yorkshire Sculpture Park or as otherwise stated. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. All photos Jonty Wilde (unless otherwise stated). Reproduced by permission of The Henry Moore Foundation.

Text by Kathryn Welford, Formal Learning Coordinator, YSP; Gary Cromack, Learning Programme Coordinator, YSP.

The exhibition was presented in partnership with The Henry Moore Foundation and supported by Christie’s.

As an independent art gallery, accredited museum and registered charity no. 1067908, YSP receives funding from Arts Council England, Wakefield Council, Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation, Roger Evans and Sakana Foundation.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, Wakefield WF4 4LG, +44(0)1924 832528, [email protected], ysp.co.uk