London exhibition aims to shed new light on Henry Moore (Feature)

By Anna Tomforde Feb 23, 2010, 17:26 GMT

London - Those of us who believe they know all there is to know about Henry Moore, Britain's most celebrated 20th century sculptor, through his arresting stone figures that grace parks and public spaces around the world should think again, according to a new London exhibition.

In the first major show of Moore's work since his death in 1986, the Tate Britain Gallery has brought together some 150 stone sculptures, wood carvings, bronzes and drawings which it hopes will lead to a 're-evaluation of the essence of Henry Moore.'

Curator Chris Stephens believes people are mistaken to think they know Moore through his public works. 'If you think you know Henry Moore because of the work that sits outside government buildings and parks in the cities you are wrong,' he said.

Moore had the unusual status of 'needing a revival in his reputation but also remaining incredibly familiar and popular,' Stephens told journalists.

The exhibition aims to portray Moore in the 'context of his time.'

It reminds the viewer that Moore's life and work was dominated by his active service as a soldier in World War I, the experience of World War II and the Holocaust and the fears and uncertainties of the Cold War era.

'The shadow of the trenches' lay over Moore's early work of the 1920s and 1930s, which linked the 'trauma of war' with the influence of primitive art and 'new ideas of sexuality,' said Stephens.

What emerged was a 'dark and erotically charged dimension' that challenged the familiar image of the artist and his work.

The exhibition re-examines Moore's 'fundamental obsession' with the recurring motif of the mother and child.

Stephens believes it has as much to do with the artist's acknowledged close relationship with his mother as with the fact that his 1929 marriage to Russian painting student Irina Radetsky remained childless until 1946.

Beyond the traditional interpretation of the 'nurturing bond' between mother and child, Stephens detects a more distant relationship in which the mother is 'reduced to a breast and the child has become a parasitical force.'

Moore's work of the inter-war years is, according to Stephens, dominated by the fear of fascism and the shattering of pacifist dreams, as expressed in The Helmet, a 1939 bronze depicting a soldier - at once fearfully trapped and protected - by his armour.

In the Cold War years of the 1950s and 60s, when Moore rose to international fame, the aftermath of of conflict, the revelations of the Holocaust and the fear of a a nuclear confrontation continued to influence his work.

This, according to the exhibition, is expressed in the 'twisted and skeletal' forms and bones of his reclining figures in the immediate post-war period.

The highlight of the exhibition comes no doubt in the display of Moore's work during World War II, when he was forced to close his studio and switched to drawing as the government's official war artist.

Moore's drawings and mini-watercolours of his perception of the 1940 'Blitz' - Nazi Germany's air attacks on London - convey not an impression of 'the heroism and stoical Londoners' but anger at their suffering, said Stephens.

The haunting depiction of sleeping figures lying huddled in claustrophobic London Underground tunnels captured a sense of 'profound humanitarian anguish' experienced by the 'urban poor.'

Moore himself described the scenes he witnessed as 'hell' and compared them to what one would see in the 'hold the a slave-ship.'

The exhibition ends with an imposing display of four of the six monumental reclining female figures Moore created from elm wood between 1939 and 1967.

The intense beauty and repose of the recumbent figures provided an element of serenity not easily detected in Moore's work, said Stephens.

The exhibition at the Tate Britain Gallery opens on February 24 and runs until August 8.